Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

          The Illuminati feels like watching a storm brewing, just over the tree line.

          It’s all that Renzou can think to himself as he wanders down the hallways of one of their minor buildings, more of a field station than anything. It’s mainly around just for the Illuminati to keep a closer eye on True Cross while still remaining inconspicuous enough to evade suspicion, and its insides certainly reflect that; cold, white walls and cold, white lights.

          The members he passes by embody that same aesthetic. They don’t give him a second glance as he walks, hands propped up behind his head, and even if they do look at him, it’s in a cool and uncaring sort of way. If the Illuminati was a growing storm, then its members were hail. Frozen, destructive, shattering into pieces at the end of their descent and all too happy to do so.

          And if its members were the hail, then Toudou Saburouta was the wind. He was chilly, nipped at you even through your jacket, and brought the promise of the storm itself wherever he went.

          Renzou does not like Toudou Saburouta.

          The man doesn’t seem to care about this, only giving him a too-sharp smile with too-bright eyes. Everything about him feels wrong, like some sort of being wearing a human skin, but Renzou plasters on a matching smile anyways and plays along.

          “Toudou-san,” he greets, giving a casual little wave. “Man, I didn’t think I’d be seeing you so soon. You’re not sick of havin’ to hang around me yet?”

          “Not quite yet!” the other man laughs, and it’s eerie when it comes out, like he knows something that Renzou doesn’t. But then again, that just seemed to be how Toudou always was, even more ever since he’d gotten Karura. “I wanted to see your work with True Cross myself, you see!”

          “Meaning you want updates on Okumura-sensei, huh?” How creepy.

          Toudou’s grin widens at that, turns almost taunting. “Okumura-kun is certainly an interest of mine, but I have to admit--it’s you who’s caught my eye these days.”

          “Really?” His voice squeaks on it a bit. His skin is practically crawling beneath the thick layers of his uniform. “Why, uh, why’s that?”

          “You’re a bit of a local celebrity these days, aren’t you?” Toudou hums, but Renzou absolutely does not miss the answer that the man had casually danced around giving. He makes a mental note to himself to keep an eye on Toudou from now on, before trying to salvage what’s left of the conversation.

          “So am I reportin’ to you now?” he asks, leaning on his back leg.

          Toudou hums again, and looks down at the desk he’s leaned against. There are various reports scattered across it, some with names that Renzou recognizes, and many with names that he doesn’t. Toudou must have been relegated to missions, then. “For a time, yes. Why?”

          “I’m takin’ some time this weekend, those couple of days around the fourth,” he replies, though the words taste almost like acid on his tongue. “My birthday’s comin’ up, and I don’t think I’m gonna be able to shirk my family that easy, so I’m cashin’ in all that time off.”

          “Birthday, huh?” The grin on Toudou’s face seems to widen, and it sets the hair on the back of Renzou’s neck to standing. “How old will you be turning, Shima-kun?”

          “Seventeen,” he says, uneasily. 

          “So young, and with a demon like Yamantaka!” Toudou laughs. He looks up from the desk to Renzou, eyes aglow. “How incredible, however did you end up with him?”

          His family’s strict warnings against sharing information about Yamantaka- you must keep it a Shima secret! - has his mouth snapping shut for a second. Then, his brain catches up, and he tosses the warnings out with a mental little eye roll. To hell with what they said--and it wasn’t like the Illuminati didn’t already know everything about him to begin with.

          “It was kind of a rotten deal, honestly,” he starts, and pettiness oils his words. “I just got the thing because I was born when my older brother Takezou died, that’s all. Now I’m the one who’s stuck with him.”

          “Your older brother?” Toudou echoes, curious. “He passed away during the Blue Night, yes?”

          Renzou nods. “Yyyyyep, matyring himself for the family and all.”

          “So you’re a December baby, then?”

          “Nah, July, remember? My birthday’s this weekend, the fourth,” Renzou corrects him. Maybe Toudou still had his old man brain, in his new young dude body? 

          “Excuse me?” There, the other man’s expression turns to one of genuine confusion. “You were born in July, and your brother passed in December?”

          “...yes?” Renzou can feel his eyebrows furrowing--Toudou is leading into something, and not knowing what that something is is making him almost anxious.

          Toudou gives him a look. “Does that make sense to you?”

          Should it not have? Renzou runs over the information again; his brother had died in December during the Blue Night, and since he’d been born when Takezou died, he inherited Yamantaka. His birthday was July 4th.

          His brother died in December. Renzou’s birthday was July 4th.

          Toudou’s expression has turned to one of almost teasing encouragement, like he was a teacher watching a small child figure out math for the first time. His smile begins to widen again as Renzou’s stomach sinks.

          But Renzou forces a laugh and puts up a smile of a shield. “I must’ve gotten the dates mixed up or somethin’, y’know? I never really cared about Take-nii, so I probably forgot his death anniversary or whatever.”

          He hadn’t.

          Toudou chuckles, as if he knows, somehow. “A perfectly reasonable thing to forget. You have many siblings, as I recall.”

          “Haha, yeah.” It’s clearly a barb to drag out their conversation, but for Renzou, the interaction had long since soured. Toudou had caught him off guard, and he knew that was a dangerous position to be in anywhere near the Illuminati. “Well, I really gotta get back--school night, and all. I’ll see you around, Toudou-san.”

          “Good night, Shima-kun,” Toudou practically purrs, and Renzou would be more creeped out by it if he weren’t so focused on getting out and away.

          He doesn’t waste a moment more in the office room, instead turning tail and escorting himself out into the hallway. He plasters on his typical smile as he walks, even though confusion turns cold and heavy in his stomach.

          Takezou had died during December, and because Renzou was born as he died, he inherited Yamantaka. His birthday was July 4th.

          His birthday was July 4th.

          He must be remembering wrong. It wasn’t entirely impossible. These days, he’d started tuning his family out whenever they started on the Takezou lecture, and it wasn’t like they ever really took a family day for the death anniversary. It was totally possible that he was just remembering the wrong day.

           (But the wrong time of year, altogether?)

          It gnaws at him as he makes his way back to True Cross, in between the alleyways and back streets of the city. The sun is up longer, these days, and seems to blind him when it reflects off of all the street signs and storefront windows. He closes his eyes, instead, and lets his mind wander as he walks down the familiar streets.

          A birthday seemed as impossible to forget as an anniversary, for him, and though that should’ve been comforting, it only opened up more questions--more possibilities. If the dates were correct, then was it his inheritance of Yamantaka that was wrong? Had there been a delay between Takezou’s death and Renzou’s birth, before the demon chose him?

          If that was what had happened… did his parents know? If they knew, had they lied about Yamantaka?

           I don’t suppose you’re going to be helpful and explain any of this, are you?  he asks the spirit thrumming just below his skin. A few seconds pass, in which he opens his eyes and sees his dormitory just a street away, with no answer from Yamantaka.

          “Of course not,” he muttered beneath his breath. Nobody in his life could ever make things easy for him.

          Renzou pulls his keys from his pocket as he approaches the front of the building, unlocking the door and letting himself in. There was nobody in the little common area on the first floor, which makes sense; it was summer. Everyone was either off enjoying the weather, or ass deep in studying. He follows the familiar motions that bring him up to his dorm, where- to no one’s surprise -Konekomaru was sitting with Bon, both of them doubled over a textbook from one of their shared smart-people classes.

          As the two of them look up and nod their heads in greeting, the acknowledgement of where he’d been goes unspoken. Renzou almost wishes they’d have more of a problem with him being a spy. It would certainly spice things up a bit.

          “You okay?” Konekomaru asks him, and the question stops him short. There’s something like concern in the other boy’s eyes, and Renzou curses himself for not covering up better.

          “Just wonderin’ how I’m gonna pass all these classes before midterms roll upm,” he lies, as easy as breathing. “My grades aren’t lookin’ too hot.”

          Konekomaru gives an exasperated little snort, as Bon rolls his eyes. “Well, you should at least try to get things in order this week, or your parents are going to kill you when we head up next week.”

          “Rightfully so,” Bon murmurs, tucking his pencil behind his ear as he picks up his textbook.

          Renzou would be more offended about the jabbing if Konekomaru’s reminder hadn’t made it so difficult for him to keep up his neutral smile. Fuck, he’d forgotten--his parents always expected him in Kyoto for his birthday. A mix of aggravation and despair wells up in his chest, but before his yearly meltdown starts, a thought suddenly halts him.

          His birth certificate.

          Spending the weekend with his family was probably going to be as awful as it always was, but his saving grace comes in the form of that one sheet of paper. He could check his birth certificate and put the whole birthday nonsense to rest (and, consequently, give a subtle little middle finger to Toudou in the process for trying to unsettle him).

          “Sure,” he says, when the silence starts to drag on for just a moment too long.

          “Sure?” Konekomaru repeats, eyebrows furrowing. “You’re not trying to get out of going?”

          Renzou gives a noncommittal shrug, because he knows there’s really no valid answer he can give that won’t make the two of them suspicious. Both Bon and Konekomaru are giving him odd looks, but it’s better than if they were to know that he wanted to go just to see his birth certificate. He doesn’t want anyone jumping to the conclusion that he’d forgotten Takezou’s death day, because there’ll be no end to the lectures if his family catches wind of it.

          So, he offers them nothing else, and instead retreats back to his bedroom.

          (One of the perks of being an upperclassman at True Cross: he doesn’t have to share a room with anyone, anymore. Just a kitchenette, but he can live with that.)

          As he flops back onto his bed, he finds himself staring up at the ceiling and its popcorn texture, trying to ease the thoughts whirling in his head.

          Just because the Illuminati thrived off of deception and misinformation didn’t mean that his family did, too. It was probably all just a misunderstanding. Either way, he’d figure things out and finally be done with it.

          Just a few days, and he’d have that birth certificate.

Chapter Text

          Despite Renzou’s optimism from before, the promise of his birth certificate is starting to become less and less of a reward the closer they get to Kyoto. Konekomaru has a hand on his sleeve as Bon leads the three of them through Tokyo’s subway systems, though he knows that it’s less to keep him close and more to keep him from running away. Renzou has a few proud moments of when he’d been able to sneak away from the watchful eyes of his childhood friends, but it was becoming more and more impossible as the years went on.

          So, feeling distinctly like a man being marched to the gallows, he resigns himself to his fate with no shortage of dramatic sighs. As they board the subway and luckily find seats to squeeze into, Renzou can’t help but look to the door mournfully. His chances of slipping away are quickly dwindling, and judging by Konekomaru’s amused smile, he knows it too.

          But, while Bon immediately sets to drowning the subway out with his headphones, Konekomaru is more sympathetic. He pulls his back pack up onto his lap and dug around in the compartments until he finally drags out a little wrapped cloth. Renzou eyes him, somewhat curious, and immediately feels a surge of happiness crop up when Konekomaru hands him a sweet pastry.

          “Koneko!” he cries, taking the snack with a grin. “When did you even get this?”

          “I get you one every year, Shima-san,” Konekomaru reminds him, his smile fond. “How is it you still don’t see it coming?”

          “I think it’s better in life to keep expectations low,” Renzou quips as he tears the wrapping away from the bun, feeling his mouth practically water. “Then, you’re always either right, or pleasantly surprised!”

          Konekomaru only rolls his eyes at that, but the smile stays on his lips even as he pulls up a mobile game on his phone to occupy himself with. Renzou devours the pastry in what feels like seconds, and the gift from his friend successfully shoves his anxieties away for another few minutes. It’s all good and well, because they have a few hours of travel ahead of them, and he knew he’d make himself sick if he thought about his family the whole way there.

          So, he pulls his headphones from his hoodie pocket and puts them into his ears, picking the loudest playlist he has and turning the volume up to max. The heavy bass and loud vocals have his ears vibrating, but at least it’s enough to drown out his thoughts. 

          Head empty, no thought.

          And that was exactly how he planned to be for as long as possible.

          Renzou manages to doze off for a few minutes, and when he can’t catch any more sleep, he turns to watching the scenery outside the window. After that, scrolling on his phone. Then, dozing, scenery, phone. Dozing, scenery, phone. It repeats in an endless cycle that grows slightly more frantic with each hour that passes, until there’s only twenty minutes left of the subway ride and his hands are sweating around his phone.

          He’s not scared, really--that would be ridiculous. He’s not even… nervous, either. Sure, home sucks, but it’s not that bad. It’s not like he’s beat unfairly, or mistreated, really. Even so, the thought of his parents’ ribbing at his grades, his brothers’ teasing about his hair, Jun’s quips about the future and college, and the endless streams of ‘How are Ryuji-kun and Konekomaru-kun doing? Are you watching after them? You need to pick up your grades so that you don’t fall a year behind them, Renzou, Shima men don’t drop out of high school, Renzou-’

          It has his stomach tying up with anxiety and irritation alike, just at the thought of what the weekend had in store for him. He had no doubt that his exorcist status would be dragged in, too, and his less-than-stellar scores on the Aria exam.

          The door to the subway finally opens for the last time, and Renzou calculates how far he can get away from Kyoto before one of his brothers catches him.

          Predictably, Konekomaru’s hand is back on his wrist, and Renzou is sure that the other boy thinks it’s comforting, but his bony fingers feel like shackles dragging him to his death. He knows that, any minute now, Kinzou is going to show up yelling and shouting and embarrassing the whole lot of them.

          But when the three of them make their way to their usual pick-up spot, there’s no loud-mouthed blonde screaming their names. Instead, he sees the familiar tall and awkward form of none other than Gouzou, a smile on his face as he waits for them. Renzou can’t even stop the audible sigh of relief that falls from his mouth, and as soon as he’s within hugging range, he latches onto Gouzou and squeezes as hard as he can.

          “Thank you so much for being here.” Renzou doesn’t even care that his voice is muffled in Gouzou’s t-shirt, too grateful for the kind countenance of his brother instead of that annoying Kinzou.

          Gouzou only chuckles and ruffles his hair with a gigantic hand. “Of course! It’s not every day my favorite little brother has his birthday.”

          At that, Renzou snorts and pulls back. “You haven’t been in town for my birthday for three years, Gou-nii.”

          “That’s not true! I-” He winces, and gives Renzou an apologetic look. “I’m busy, Renzou, you know that.”

          “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Renzou sighs, but he’s not upset about it, really. He’d be like Gouzou too, halfway across the country, if he could. Gouzou just happened to get out first. “‘least you’re here now, right?”

          His older brother nods, and looks to Konekomaru and Bon, his smile widening. “Konekomaru-kun, Ryuji-kun, it’s been a while! How are you two doing? Keeping Renzou out of trouble?”

          He ignores the jab as the three of them jump into conversation, instead looking up to the summer sky above him. Kyoto is the last place in the world he’d want to be on any given day, much less his birthday, but at least the weather is nice. The breeze cools the temperature, and promises starry nights for when he sneaks out after sunset. He hopes they haven’t discovered his little hiding spot by the abandoned shrines--the rooftops were shoddy at best, but gave him the best view of the night sky.

          A few minutes pass, and they’re making their way up to the temple and inn, finally. Gouzou leads the way, embroiled in some sort of conversation with Konekomaru about a demon in the Middle East. Bon slinks back to his side, subtle enough that Renzou doesn’t really realize he’s there until Bon reaches out to elbow him.

          “Hey,” he starts, his voice quiet. Renzou immediately perks up, because it’s not often that Bon wants to tell him something like a secret. A little part of him is excited. “Koneko never wanted to tell you this, but it ain’t easy comin’ up here for him either. It makes him upset when you’re all asshole-ish to your family.”

          Oh.

          “So could ya play nice this once?” Bon continues, utterly oblivious to the smile sliding off of Renzou’s face. “For him, dude.”

          Renzou doesn’t respond, at first. It takes him a few seconds to even process what Bon is saying, and when he does, what little remains of his good mood promptly goes down the trash disposal. It’s his birthday weekend, and he’s already giving it up for his family when he’d rather be anywhere else, but Bon wants him to ‘play nice’. For Konekomaru.

          He knows Bon doesn’t mean anything by it, but for one brief moment, a feeling of bitterness rises up so strongly that the harsh words are quite literally at the tip of his tongue. What the fuck was Bon on, to say some shit like that? Did Renzou not already give up enough? Did he not already give up everything he wanted to be that ‘perfect son’ that everyone expected him to be? 

          The two people he should’ve been able to be open and honest with, and one of them is asking him not to be.

          But as soon as the emotions seize him, he tucks them rather violently away, shoves them down until his smile becomes more believable. Nothing good would come out of voicing his thoughts.

          “I’ll try my best,” he says, instead. A neutral statement, one that Bon accepts blindly. His childhood friend clasps his shoulder good-naturedly, giving him a grateful smile before he turns to catch up with Gouzou and Konekomaru. Renzou watches him go, feeling blank and hollow. Somewhere, buried deep down, is a childish feeling of hurt. 

          This weekend is going to be worse than he thought.

          He feels it when they finally reach the inn, and Kinzou greets him with a near violent slap on the back and a promise of a ‘birthday spar’ later. He barely even gets to set his things down in his room before he’s being dragged off, and suddenly he’s in the kitchen while Bon’s mom asks about school, and Juuzou asks about grades, and his dad asks about training, and Jun asks about college plans, and so on and so forth.

          It carries on into dinner, because of course it does. Normally, he’d be able to hide behind Konekomaru and Bon for family conversations, but because of his birthday, all the attention is on him. Everyone wants to know about Yamantaka, how cram school is going, when he’s going to get his next meister, why he hasn’t already gotten three meisters, why he’s not at the top of his class, why he has no plan for the future, and a silent thread links every goddamn question-- why are you not Takezou yet?

          His birthday does not save him from dish duty, either, and Renzou finds himself cleaning every plate and cup by hand while his mother lectures him about the importance of keeping up grades and extracurricular involvement in his final years of high school.

          “...ally Ryuji-kun would go to college, and Konekomaru-kun will be able to go with him, but you’ll never be able to catch up with them at this rate,” his mother continues, managing to multitask between preparing a pot of tea and tearing him a new one all at once. “You can’t be leaving the two of them alone, you know that your gift will do everyone the most good if you’re with them.”

          Right, his gift --he supposes it’s easy for them to see Yamantaka as that, since they never had to learn how to wield the damn demon. Renzou bites his tongue, however, and turns to the next cup to be cleaned.

          “Renzou,” she says, rather sharp, and he pauses to look at her, attempting to look engaged. “Have you been listening to me? Honestly, I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall sometimes.”

          “I’m listenin’,” he replies, a little noncommittally as he turns back to the cup, scrubbing off the remnants of Jun’s lipstick. “Pick my grades up, go to college with Bon and Koneko, etcetera.”

          Ezume gives a little noise, something in her expression unamused, but looks away from him and back to the tea pot. “You’ve been spacing out all afternoon, Renzou, what is it?”

          He goes to tell her that it’s nothing, like he always does, but then the thought of his birth certificate comes back to him. “Actually, I have been thinkin’ about somethin’. Can I see my birth certificate?”

          Renzou has his hands deep in soapy water, focusing on rinsing off the bowls, which is why he doesn’t notice his mother’s hesitance, at first. He picks up on her silence after a second and looks at her, but she’s turned away from him and towards the counter. She’s stirring the tea, looking normal, but he recognizes the lines of tension across her shoulders.

          “What do you want with that?” she asks, evenly.

          All at once, the lie comes to him. “It’s for this extra cram course kinda class, it’s some more intense physical training so they need extra identification and all.”

          It’s a long moment before she replies again, and Renzou’s confusion starts to grow. It’s just his birth certificate, what has her so tense? He doesn’t have much more time to think about it, because it’s then that his mother finally responds to him. “I don’t think we have it. A lot of documents got burned up in the Blue Night, Renzou.”

          Ezume’s lies are nowhere near as good as his, and he can tell. It’s blatantly and clearly not true, and he knows by the way that her jaw clenches right after she says it. His mother is lying to him. About his birth certificate, of all things, and it gives life to the ugly sorts of doubts and accusations he’d buried only days before. 

          “We can see about going up to the hospital to get a replacement,” she continues, and Renzou knows that it’s an empty promise. He knows that his certificate is here, if only because she’s clearly lying about it not being so. 

           And if there’s one thing that Renzou knows how to do, it’s finding things people don’t want him to see.

Chapter Text

          “Renzou? Come help me change the sheets in the guest rooms, won’t you?”

          It’s the third task he’s been asked to do in only that day, and the clock hadn’t even struck noon, yet! For some reason, he’s being dragged all across the inn and temple for chores, and he’d been left with virtually no time at all to snoop around. He almost thinks that it’s because of the seasonal short handedness, but mid way through hauling all the dirty laundry down to the laundry room, he catches sight of his mother.

          Her eyes are sharp as they watch him. She looks away, when she notices that he’s paying attention, but the vision sticks in his head even as the hours of the day pass. The chores only grow greater in number, even when everyone else in the temple and inn is allowed to take breaks. His mother is running him ragged, and the worst part of it all is that his father is in on it, too.

          Renzou doesn’t know it at first, of course. He only sees it when the chores list runs dry, and suddenly Yaozou is dragging him into spars with his brothers. They spend what feels like the entire rest of the day in their family’s training room, between practice fights and katas that feel military-like in their intensity. Yaozou is determined not to give him a break.

          And as he lay on the floor, panting and spent after having his ass handed to him by both Kinzou and Juuzou at once, Renzou can’t understand why. Sure, his parents were slave drivers, but they at least let him have meals. He hasn’t had a bite to eat since breakfast, and somehow he feels like they had planned it that way. He couldn’t think of any rational reason why they were busting him so hard on his birthday weekend, of all times.

          Was this really all just because he’d asked to see his birth certificate?

          Was that such a horrible thing for him to ask about? Bad enough to deserve punishment? Sure, he can see it as some sort of divine retribution for his plans to sneak around and find it anyways, but he’s just trying to double check his birthday. What had started as a silly question was starting to feel more serious by the second, and, frustratingly, he still has no idea why.

          “How did you manage to piss off mom and dad so fast?” Jun asks him, when he finally manages to scrape himself off the floor enough to hobble over to the showers. “I haven’t seen them kick your tail this hard since your masked pervert days!”

          “Yeah, ‘cuz it’s always my fault, isn’t it,” he mutters, clutching a staff-shaped bruise on his ribcage. She stands in his doorway as he pulls a pair of night clothes out of his bag, completely unhelpful and rather annoying, in his opinion.

          “Well, parents don’t usually do things for no reason,” Jun tells him, in that sort of tone that she always puts on when she’s going to bring up her kids and make it known that she’s got an entire family of her own now. Renzou barely manages to bite back a retort at how pretentious she’s being. “You had to have done something. ”

          And that pushes his irritation just a bit more than he can really contain. He snatches up his clothes and stomps out of the room, turning a biting smile up at her. “Why don’t you go ask ‘em? I’m sure you guys have your whole parenting shtick to bond over.”

         “Renzou!” she calls after him as he makes his way down the hallway, and he scowls when he hears the sound of her footsteps against the floorboards just behind him. “What’s got you so pissy, huh?”

          And this is the moment of truth, isn’t it? Renzou can put on the smile, apologize and fly under the radar. Or, he can say what he means, and inevitably get his ass whooped for it. Like every other time before, he plasters on the smile, and swallows down his irritation. “Sorry, Jun-nee, I’m just tired and all. It’s been a long day.”

          “No kidding.” Jun huffs out a chuckle, raising her eyebrow at him. “You should probably get rid of the attitude before mom catches it, huh? That’ll make for a shitty birthday weekend.”

           It already is a shitty birthday weekend, he wants to say, but as always, doesn’t. 

          “Gotcha,” he says, instead, and turns back towards the showers. Thankfully, she doesn’t follow him.

          In a twist of his luck, the showers are mostly empty. They’re partitioned off, anyways, but Renzou can’t help the sigh of relief at finally being alone for the first time that entire day. No matter where he’d gone, there was somebody on his ass, and it’s only in the late hours of the night that he’s finally been let loose.

          He values the time alone for as long as he can, fighting off the impending homesickness for his dorm back in Tokyo. He makes it halfway through his shower, riding on that happiness, before his thoughts from the day before start to settle in again. 

          Renzou isn’t stupid. Years of spying with both True Cross and the Illuminati has made him keenly aware of when something’s being hidden from him, and this situation fits it to a T. 

          But, even with the disaster of a day, he’s still not any less determined to find that goddamn birth certificate. In fact, he’s actually even more determined. He has only a day and a half left before he has to return to True Cross with Konekomaru and Bon, so time for him is running short. The only option left is to sneak around tonight, when everyone else is asleep. And shit, doesn’t that suck? He can already feel his muscles complaining.

          So, despite the soreness of his body and the temptation of a good night’s sleep, he gets dressed and gets ready to sneak around his family home. He plots out his search as he towel dries his hair, looking at himself in the mirror. 

          Logically, their birth certificates would either be in his parents’ room or his father’s office. Checking his parents’ bedroom was practically a no-go, so he’d just have to scour his father’s office and pray that nobody caught him.

          Renzou keeps his destination in mind as he closes his bedroom door silently behind him, padding down the hallway in thick-socked feet. He stays away from the light, and determination fuels him as he makes a beeline for the office.

          But just as the door comes into sight, he feels something like a tug stop him in his tracks. It’s the same feeling as when he calls Yamantaka forward, and so he huffs beneath his breath, ducks behind a door frame and turns his attention inward.

           What? he demands. I’m sneaking around and you’re being distracting as shit!

           But there’s no verbal reply, only that same tugging sensation that grows stronger and stronger the more Renzou tries to shove it away. Frustrated, he throws his hands up in the air and decides--fuck it, he’ll follow Yamantaka if it means the damn demon will leave him alone.

          He begrudgingly follows the tugging sensation back out into the hallway, but past his father’s office and back towards his siblings’ bedrooms. It’s a pain in the ass to sneak quietly past his older siblings, especially with Kinzou’s hair trigger everything, but he makes it past Gouzou and Jun with no problems, and finds himself at the end of the hallway.

           What now? he asks Yamantaka, as if expecting a response with words. The demon only pushes him towards that last doorway, the one that he hasn’t stepped foot in as long as he’s lived in the building. 

          It’s Takezou’s room.  

           What exactly do you think we’re gonna find in there? he demands. The very thought of going into his dead older brother’s room makes him uncomfortable. The sheer sense of wrongness it gives him makes him tempted to turn back around and leave. As if a dead brother wasn’t creepy enough, he really didn’t want to have to be reminded of Takezou once again that weekend--even just thinking of his oldest brother’s name had irritation spiking in his chest.

          The tug pushes him forward. Renzou doesn’t know why he follows it, but he does. He slides open the door to Takezou’s room and steps in, closing it behind him as he immediately winces at the heavy scent of dust.

           It had been seventeen years since Takezou had died, and that was blatantly obvious. Not a damn thing in his room had been moved since then; not the sheets on his bed, the books on his desk, or the immaculate arrangement of weapons on his wall. Renzou takes a strange sort of glee in seeing a pile of clothes scattered on the floor. Not entirely perfect, huh?

          Yamantaka had faded, leaving him alone. He decides to look around the room a bit until Yamantaka comes back, or he gets bored. Whichever came first.

          The room is rather unremarkable, in all honesty. Save for the clothes on the floor, it seems almost clinically clean and bare, with no sort of knick-knacks or posters anywhere to jazz things up. It looks like one of the inn’s rooms; painfully blank, painfully bland, and painfully boring. He makes his way over to the desk, instead, wondering if he could find any porn mags hidden in Takezou’s desk. Wouldn’t that be an even bigger ‘fuck you’ to his parents? His oldest brother being a perv, too.

          Renzou slides open the desk’s drawer, only to see various pens and pencils and paper scattered over the drawer’s insides. There’s nothing remarkable, nor is there anything remarkable in any of the other drawers. There’s nothing worth seeing anywhere in the desk, and the line of books on top of the desk isn’t any better.

          Bored, and a little underwhelmed, he finds himself looking at the books on top of the desk. They’re all exorcism books, all theories and practices and problems. The only thing that catches his eye is a book on taming, where it looks like a sheaf of papers had been shoved between the pages. He pulls the book out and pops it open, startled by a pamphlet that falls from the pages and to the ground.

           ...weird, Renzou thinks to himself, as he sets the book down and crouches down to the floor to look at the pamphlet. It’s dry and crumpled in his hands, but the title is still clear when he turns it over: Father’s Guide to that First Child.

           He blanks so hard that the pamphlet nearly falls from his hand. He catches it with a jerky snap of his wrist, eyes widening as he looks over the title again. It doesn’t change, still that shocking phrase-- Father’s Guide, First Child. 

           “No way,” Renzou whispers. “Take-nii had a pregnancy scare?”

          It nearly cracks him up. He can imagine the look on his parents face if they were to see the pamphlet; shit, they’d be so shocked! Their perfect son and a pregnancy scare, it was near hysterical to him. Renzou had to muffle his laughter as he flipped through the pages, reading over the tips and warnings. At least he was prepared.

           There’s a paper wedged in the pamphlet, too, and he pulls it out with no small amount of amusement. It had certainly shattered that ‘Perfect Takezou’ image in his mind. 

          He nearly laughs aloud when he sees Certificate of Birth written across the top of the paper as he unfolds it. So Takezou really did have a little Take running around! Renzou wonders where the kid is, as he found Shima Takezou written clearly as the father’s name. His eyes wander up to where the kid’s name would be and-

           Shima Renzou. Date of Birth: December 22nd, 2003

           “So you found it, then, did you?”

          Yaozou’s voice comes from behind him, somehow so close and yet so far at once. Renzou can’t look away from the certificate. 

          Shima Renzou. Shima Takezou. December 22nd.

          A heavy hand clamps down on his shoulder. His clavicle creaks with the force.

          “It would be better for everyone if you forgot you saw this, Renzou.”

          Shima Renzou. Shima Takezou.

          December 22nd.

Chapter Text

          The cool night air of Kyoto does nothing to soothe Renzou. His breath comes out in harsh panting, both from the distance he’d run and the suffocating feeling of wrongness that fell over him as soon as he’d read the paper. The rustling of the trees in the breeze sounds like static to him, overwhelming static, and he wishes that everything would just shut the fuck up!

          It’s with a grunt that he yanks Yamantaka up and out, and black flames spill forth into the forest as he shoves the demon from his body. The effort leaves him gasping for air, but his eyes feel like they’re burning as he looks up.

          “Did you know?” he demands, breathless. “About Take- Takezou? About me?”

          Yamantaka watches him throw the crumpled certificate to the ground, eerily silent. For a second, Renzou doesn’t think the demon will say anything at all, but then his voice comes forth, almost apologetic. “I did.”

           “And you didn’t tell me?!” Renzou howls, kicking a rock by his foot with such fervor that it ricochets loudly off of a nearby tree.

          Like always, Yamantaka silently watches him, ever the observer of his temper tantrums. Renzou doesn’t bother to hide the childish feeling of hurt, and anger, and betrayal from his summon--he knows that Yamantaka has seen the ugliest parts of him, horrible little things that Renzou had never allowed anyone else to see. It’s all well and good, because Yamantaka doesn’t react to his anger, only waits for him to quiet down.

           “There are contracts in place that I must abide by,” the demon tells him. “And this was one of them.”

          Renzou scoffs, and the sound is harsh and cruel. “You seriously expect me to believe that, huh? A demon like you can’t control the contracts he gets in? You know that sounds like bullshit.”

           “It is the truth.” Something in Yamantaka’s voice stops him, makes him hesitate. “My ties to your family are not ones that I follow willingly.”

           Oh.

          Renzou blinks, and as he watches Yamantaka, he can feel the anger draining slowly from his veins, leaving only a brittle coldness in its wake. It’s only a second later that he slumps down to the ground, digging his hands up over his eyes and into his hair. Of course he can’t control being tied to me, Renzou thinks to himself, letting out a defeated, dry chuckle. He’s stuck in this too, then.

           “How’d they sucker you in, then?” he asks, because that question is easier than the thousand others whirling in his head at mach speed.

           “Sharing that information is what led to my employment to begin with,” is all that Yamantaka gives him. His tone tells Renzou that he won’t be getting anything more out of the demon, and so he lets it go. Instead, he draws his knees up to his chest, leans his chin on his arms and tries to breathe past the constriction of his chest.

          “Is it really true?” he whispers, breathy-quiet, because he knows the answer isn’t one that he wants to hear.

          Yamantaka hears him, of course. “It is. Shima Takezou was your sire, and you inherited me through your genetic bond.”

           “But he’s my brother, of course we have a genetic bond!” Renzou argues. “That doesn’t mean- it doesn’t mean he’s my dad. It doesn’t.”

           “Takezou died to save you, Renzou. You need to live up to his legacy.”

           Jesus Christ. This couldn’t be right.

           “You don’t believe me,” Yamantaka says.

          “I-” Renzou leans his forehead down onto his arms, squeezes his eyes shut. “I don’t want it to be true. It’s not true.”

          Because if it was… God, he didn’t even want to think about it. The implications were terrifying, stole his breath and set his heart racing. 

           “What will make you believe it?”

           What would make him believe it? The certificate could be faked, and his ‘genetic bond’ to Takezou could have been anything. A paternity test was… practically impossible. Takezou was dead, cremated and sealed away, and the thought of trying to get DNA from his ashes--it was horrifying to even consider. He was running short on answers, and part of him was grateful for it.

          But when he looks up, he sees the crumpled certificate laid out before him, face-up on the ground. He can spy his own name on it, and his supposedly true birth date, and then Takezou’s name. Just below that was another one, under the mother: Yamauchi Amaya.

          “Do you think I could find her?” Renzou asks him.

          Yamantaka gives a dip of his skull-and-shadow head, almost like a nod. “I think it would certainly be possible. Though, you will not find her anywhere near here.”

          “Why?” It makes him almost grateful, but confused all the same.

          “You were not the first that they attempted to bury the information with,” Yamantaka says, quietly. Renzou feels something like dread sprout up, though he doesn’t know why, exactly. The demon’s vague answer has set his hair on end, and knowing that Yamantaka had never been one for dramatics only makes his nervousness spike.

          A blur of a memory comes to him, of Takezou’s room from not even an hour before, of reading the certificate that shook his world and everything in it. He remembers his father- Yaozou, just behind him, voice low and empty, a warning hand on his shoulder. ‘It would be better for everyone if you forgot you saw this, Renzou.’

          Was it a request, to keep things hidden? A warning about what he’d find?

          A threat?

          Renzou looks back to the temple, where the roof is dark in the night and a single light glows in one of the windows. His family home had always caused him grief, for all the years he’d lived in it, but never outright nervousness. 

          Nervous. As his heart pounds in his ears and his palms leave sweaty imprints on his arm, he realizes that that’s exactly how he feels. Nervous to go back. His father’s cold voice, his mother’s sharp eyes--did his siblings know? Did Jun and Gouzou and Juuzou know? Did Kinzou? Yumi?

          Bon and Konekomaru--were they in on the secret, too?

          “I don’t want to go home,” he finds himself saying, and then looks to Yamantaka, like somehow the demon could save him.

          “They will not harm you.” Yamantaka’s voice is sure and determined. It’s the most emotion that Renzou has heard out of him all night.

          “But they could do a lot worse,” Renzou murmurs, turning his gaze back down to the ground. He knows that better than anyone. Whether it was through lectures or grounding or training that left him bruised and battered, he’d never gone against his parents without immediately being made to regret it. And if he got the treatment earlier that day just for asking for his birth certificate, what will they do now that they know he found it?

          “You only have tomorrow and half a day left before you will depart again,” Yamantaka tells him, gently. “Spend the day outside, or in the city, and you will not be home long enough for retaliation.”

          It’s a temporary solution at best. Sure, it would work for this weekend--he’s sure he can manage to drag Konekomaru or Bon somewhere--but in the future? He’s never been allowed to wriggle out of visiting Kyoto before, so there were sure to be more visits. His sentence is coming, and there’s no way he can avoid it forever.

          But he can avoid it for the weekend.

          Yamantaka returns to him, and Renzou leaves the forest, making the trudge back up to the temple. He manages to slink in without waking anyone or being seen, and gets back to his bedroom with no other interruptions. The sheets feel thin, and the room feels cold, and he spends more time staring up at the ceiling than he does actually sleeping.

          It seems as if he blinks, and then the sun is up, casting light through his window and into his room. He feels tired, and drained, and as he hears the first footsteps out in the hallway, he feels nervous once more. Suddenly, it feels dangerous to be alone. He knows at any moment, Kinzou could come running in, or Jun could drag him off, or Juuzou could throw a staff his way and call him out to the yard. Even worse, he knows that his parents could be the ones to corner him (could he really call them his parents anymore?).

          So Renzou shoots up from his bed, throws the covers off and steps onto the cold floor. He sees his backpack by the door--there, a good excuse. He picks it up and slings it over his shoulder, before stepping out of his room and taking the closest door to get outside.

          The grass and rocks against his bare feet don’t stop him from crossing the property, making a beeline straight for where he knew Bon and his family stayed. Konekomaru would ask too many questions if he showed up unannounced, but Bon wouldn’t care where he visited if he just had a textbook on his lap.

          Tatsuko gives him a wave when he passes her on his way in, and he puts on a smile for her that drops as soon as her back is turned again. The route over to Bon’s room is one he could follow in his sleep, and so he’s there in seconds, sliding the door open and shutting it behind him.

          Just as expected, Bon only gives him a raised eyebrow as he plops down on the floor, dragging out a math assignment that had been due almost an entire week before. He goes back to his own studying after, a book in hand as Renzou spreads himself across the floor and tries to make himself comfortable.

          He spends hours there, flipping through various textbooks and assignments, making progress if only because he has nothing better to do. It’s around mid afternoon that Konekomaru joins him, his own back pack in hand and a soft smile on his face. He tells Renzou that he’d fended off various attempts to find him, and had told Renzou’s family that he was busy studying. 

          At that moment, he’s sorely tempted to kiss Konekomaru, he’s so grateful. Sure, the two of them keep him working and don’t let him slack off, but the clock ticks on and the socially acceptable hours for chores or training pass by. He’s managed to waste the entire day without having to see his family even once, and the relief hits him like a tidal wave.

          Bon’s mother invites them to stay for dinner, of course, which only extends the time he can spend out of the Shima home. There is tension at the table when Torako confesses that Tatsuma will be late, but it passes quickly when Konekomaru starts up a conversation about the meal.

          Renzou stretches his eating out as long as he can, tries to linger behind as much as possible, but the sun is setting and he knows he’s beginning to overstay his welcome. It’s with all the reluctance in the world that he finally bids his goodbyes to Konekomaru and the Suguro family, and begins the trek back to the Shima household.

          There’s a gentle warmth that spreads over him as he gets closer to the household, and he can’t say for sure that it’s Yamantaka’s doing, but he has a strong feeling that it is. It gives him the strength he needs to slide open the door to one of the side hallways, casting his eyes about to see if anyone else saw him.

          And of course, it’s just his luck that his mother is standing there.

          Ezume has her arms crossed, and her expression is hard. Cold. Renzou braces himself, though for what exactly, he still doesn't know. A bead of sweat rolls down the back of his neck.

          “Did you tell them?” she asks, tone chilly.

          Renzou swallows, throat suddenly dry, and proceeds to pull the worst acting performance of his entire life. “Tell them- tell them what?”

          She raises an eyebrow, and the look she gives him is one he’s used to. It’s the same look she used to give him when he’d skipped class, or stolen a book, or failed a test. It should’ve been familiar, but there was no warmth in her eyes, and suddenly he’s wondering if there ever had been.

          “Go to sleep, Renzou.”

          With that, she turns away from him and down the hallway. As soon as he can’t see her anymore, a gasp falls from his lips, and his shoulders drop like a string had been cut. Yamantaka is quick to flood him with warmth once more, but it does nothing to melt the frost that seems to linger in the air. 

          He’s not entirely in control of himself when he makes it back to his bedroom, numbness taking over him alongside some of Yamantaka’s nudging. He doesn’t even change out of his clothes before collapsing onto his bed. Sleep evades him, of course--he’s too swept up in, well, everything.

          And so another night passes, blankly staring at the ceiling.

Chapter Text

          His parents do not speak to him when he leaves. His brothers and sisters do, of course, shouting various things about visiting more often, or keeping up with his work, or keeping an eye on Bon and Konekomaru. But Yaozou and Ezume stand together, looking at him with blank eyes when he bids his goodbyes, and do not say anything.

          The trip back to True Cross is blissfully quiet, thankfully, which gives him plenty of time to think. Yamantaka is silent but present as Renzou calls a name back up into his mind—Yamauchi Amaya. The woman who Takezou had the baby with. He decides that calling it ‘the baby’ is far easier.

          He doesn’t even know how he’s going to start finding her. It had made sense in the moment, but now? He could try looking her name up, sure, but there had to be hundreds of Yamauchi Amayas across Japan, right? Was it possible he was even going to find the right one? Even if he did, he was sure it had to be against some sort of law, or at the very least creepy and weird to not only get her address, but to show up asking if she happened to have had some sort of baby seventeen years ago with his dead brother?

          Renzou holds back a sigh, not wanting to catch Bon or Konekomaru’s attention. It was all starting to feel more impossible by the moment, and deep down, maybe he wants it to be. He doesn’t want to find out that his whole birth was a lie and-

          He shoves the thoughts down and away, locks them in a little box and throws them somewhere else. He can’t really afford to have a meltdown over this, not on a public subway like he is. He’ll think about it later.

          They arrive back at the dorms, and from there, it’s time to finish up their late work. They’d requested this day off from school, but that means they have assignments to make up, and Bon is determined to make sure he finishes them. The afternoon passes in textbooks and worksheets, and as night falls, it’s time to check into work.

          The Illuminati no longer feels like an incoming storm. Now, as Toudou sits before him, smiling serenely, Renzou thinks that the Illuminati has become more of an incoming tornado. Toudou, as always, is the cold wind whipping everything up, ushering in the storm.

          “Renzou-kun!” he greets, cheerfully. “Welcome back! How was your birthday weekend?”

          It has to be a dig, a deliberate one. Even so, Renzou doesn’t let him know that anything is wrong, that anything is out of the ordinary. “Yep! Pretty relaxing, honestly, it was nice not havin’ to work and all.”

          “I hear that,” Toudou chuckles. “You have no new assignments for now, so I suppose you still technically have the time off. Of course, unless you’d like to pick something up?”

          He forces a laugh. “No way, Toudou-san! I gotta keep up my reputation as a slacker, y’know? Can’t have people thinkin’ I want all their extra work.”

          “Yes, yes,” Toudou hums, shuffling through a stack of reports. He has a pen tucked behind his ear, looking deceivingly innocent. “That’s all we have for you today, so you’re dismissed to leave whenever you’d like.”

          “Thanks.” Renzou turns to leave immediately, like he always does, but something stops him up short. He needs a less than legal way to track down Yamauchi, right? He doubts another resource will give him the information he wants without making him seem suspicious, but the Illuminati… nothing about them is legal, nor do they care what weird things their members do. Hell, just look at Toudou himself. “Actually, I wanted to ask somethin’.”

          Toudou looks up from his desk, and despite his pleasant expression, there’s something sharp in his eyes. “Yes?”

          For a second, Renzou hesitates. He feels distinctly like he’s walking into a bear trap, just one footstep away from metal jaws clamping down around his ankle, but… he’s already sort of trapped, isn’t he? Can it really get any worse? “Do you think, uh, the Illuminati has access to like, the population’s names and addresses?”

          “Oh?” Toudou blinks, and then a smile seems to pull at his lips, and it narrows his eyes and puts sharp fangs on display. Renzou knows all at once that the bear trap has snapped shut. “Yes, I believe we do. Would you like to borrow one of our laptops?”

          “Yes, please,” he says, anyways, because he knows that he’s made a mistake and there’s no getting out of it now. Toudou, thankfully, doesn’t drag it out any longer, and promptly reaches over to the edge of his desk to pick up a laptop. It’s silver and heavy in Renzou’s hands when he takes it, and retreats back to one of the couches in the room to sit down on.

          He opens up the laptop, and it’s then that Toudou calls out to him.

          “You’ll find the link to the website under one of my files. It should be labelled ‘General Information’, I believe.”

          Renzou nods, and tries not to think too hard about why the Illuminati would actually have access to the personal information of Japan’s citizens. Instead, he opens up the file Toudou had directed him to, and finds a link to a generic looking website. It seems almost like one of those criminal record searches, but he doesn’t have to pay to see anyone’s information. He spots ‘Okumura Yukio’ in the recent search bar, and pretends he doesn’t.

          Instead, he types in the name ‘Yamauchi Amaya’ and presses enter, and isn’t surprised to see a decent number of women who pop up. The search lets him refine his results, and so he thinks for a moment.

           She would be unmarried, Yamantaka says to him. Shima Takezou was her soulmate. She would not have found another.

           Renzou doesn’t question it, and refines the search to unmarried women. That narrows down a few more, but there’s still a handful of women. On a whim, he throws in another keyword- pregnancy -and finds himself with only two women left.

          The first one has elegantly tamed hair and sharp eyebrows, and Renzou knows at once that she is not the right one. Her expression is stern, harsh, and an elementary understanding of biology tells him that he- the baby likely would have inherited her black hair if she were the one.

          The second woman looks, in a word, much less refined. Her curly brown hair is tousled, wild, and despite the gentle smile, there are lines of stress across her face. This Yamauchi Amaya has wide, brown eyes; they’re nothing like the other woman’s sharp grey, almost black eyes. He clicks on her profile, and more information pops up—her birthday, where she’d lived, the jobs she had and her family information. He finds that she lives in Ibaraki, only an hour or so away from Tokyo.

          And then, he finds hospital records. He finds her recent visit for strep, another visit for appendicitis, and many, many more for other common illnesses. He scrolls down further, years in the past, and finds her hospital visit for pregnancy. The date matches up: December 22nd, 2003. This is the right woman, and Yamantaka hums in agreement.

          He scrolls a little further, and finds a list of addresses. She had many, particularly in the past few years, but there is one that she had been staying at for a while. He stares at it, trying to commit it to memory.

          “Ah, tracking someone down, then?” Toudou’s voice comes from directly behind him, and Renzou jumps, muffling down a cry as he whips his head around to see the older man looking at the computer. He looks away and smiles at Renzou, looking incredibly satisfied. “Yamauchi Amaya, hmm? Oh, Renzou-kun, if you wanted to know about your birth mother, you could have just asked!”

          His heart skips a beat in his chest. “...what?”

          Toudou’s head tilts, and then he laughs. “Your mother! The Illuminati knows everything about our members, you see! Especially someone in such a precarious position as you’re in, dear, we need to have some sort of leverage to keep you in line.”

          Renzou can only stare, wide-eyed and pale as Toudou reaches a hand down to ruffle his hair, almost affectionately. The older man backs up and away from him, returning back to his seat at his desk and he takes the stack of reports up again. He’s smiling, the same as always.

          Renzou feels like he could puke. 

          The computer feels like a snake in his hands, suddenly, and he can’t move it away fast enough. He stands to his feet and turns away, leaving the room at a pace just short of running. His heart is pounding in his ears, a roaring crescendo that only grows louder as he passes by people in the hallways. 

          Suddenly, their disinterested eyes seem like they’re staring at him, staring right into him. Their impassive faces seem twisted, grinning, taunting--do they know, too?

          Does everyone know?

          He can’t get out of the building fast enough, only makes it a few streets away before it feels like he’s dying. Renzou collapses behind a dumpster, digs his hands into his hair as his chest heaves for air. He thought he had some power. He thought he had some control. He thought he was—well, never safe, really, but safe enough. 

          He was wrong. Everyone is in on the secret. Everyone except for him. Fuck, he doesn’t even know how deep it goes! Every little piece he uncovers is just hiding something beneath itself, and everybody seems to know the answers except for him. His family doesn’t want him to know, and the Illuminati is using it to blackmail him— was he ever in control of anything? Was he ever free? Or had he just been in a cage with bars far enough away that he couldn’t see them until now?

          It’s between this and the realization that he can’t breathe that his vision blurs, and suddenly everything goes black.

          When he can finally see again, he’s in his bed, and Konekomaru is leaning over him. The other boy’s brows are furrowed in concern, and he only looks more worried when Renzou manages to get his eyes to stay open.

          “Are you okay?” Konekomaru asks him. He’s on the side of Renzou’s bed, in his pajamas. How much time had passed?

          “Yeah, I’m good,” Renzou says, and it’s a lie, of course. He feels tired, and his head is pounding. “How did I, uh, get back?”

          “Yamantaka,” the other boy answers, simply. At that, Renzou frowns. He knows Yamantaka is unsettling to Konekomaru, but at the same time, he’s grateful to the demon for at least getting him back in one piece. “He said you had a panic attack.”

          Yeah, scratch that, he isn’t grateful at all. He sends an irritated feeling towards Yamantaka, who ignores it, of course. “It’s fine, I didn’t have a panic attack. He’s just being dramatic.”

          “You were with the Illuminati, weren’t you?” The question comes suddenly, and almost harshly. Konekomaru is staring him down, but there’s something like concern behind his gaze. “What happened?”

          His tone makes Renzou frown, petulantly. Concerned or not, Konekomaru doesn’t have to make him feel like a kid caught sneaking out, or something. He rolls over on the bed, turning his back to the other boy. “Nothin’ happened, Koneko. Just go back to sleep.”

          “Renzou!” Konekomaru’s voice is exasperated, but in a pleading sort of way. “Please take this seriously! You were shaken when you came back last time, and you were acting weird in Kyoto, and now this? I’m worried about you.”

          “Nothin’ to be worried about,” Renzou grumbles, but he knows he won’t last long. It isn’t often that Konekomaru takes a stand against Renzou, but he never gives up when he does. “I’m just… thinkin’ about stuff, alright? It’s fine.”

          “I’ll decide if I should be worried or not,” Konekomaru says, stern. It’s a long minute where he doesn’t say anything, and then he lets out a sigh. “You don’t have to tell me anything, but just- just tell me that you’re safe.”

          Renzou frowns to himself, but after a second, it eases, and he gives in. “Safe wasn’t in the job description, but I guess I’m not in imminent danger.”

          “That’s enough,” Konekomaru concedes. He’s managed to avoid an argument, but for some reason, his friend’s tone makes him feel like they’d both lost. It leaves him feeling unsatisfied, but he knows he can’t drag Konekomaru into this. Even if the other boy believed it, it would probably bring him in the line of fire, too. “I’ll leave you alone, then.”

          It’s clearly an attempt to get Renzou to tell him to stay, or to open up, but he doesn’t take it, even as much as it sucks to practically feel the disappointment rolling off of Konekomaru as he stands and leaves.

          Maybe if he were to get enough evidence, he would tell Konekomaru. If he had the proof, the full story, then maybe… But he doesn’t, and so he reluctantly leaves it alone.

Chapter Text

           Renzou disembarks off the subway, and despite the hoodie pulled tight over his arms and the heat beating down from above, he still feels cold. The people around him are unfamiliar, the streets are unfamiliar, and as nervous as he is now, Ibaraki looks downright threatening. He pulls his hood up over his head, hiding his telltale pink hair from view and shading his face over. He’s hoping it’ll help hide him from watching eyes, but at the same time, he knows; if the Illuminati were to follow him, there would be no way to escape them.

          It’s a thought that’s strong at the back of Renzou’s head as he takes off into the streets, trying to stay as buried between people as he possibly can. He takes back alleys and side streets, keeping a close eye on the map on his phone to keep himself hard to track, but not lost. His destination is only a few scant minutes away, over by the Akebono park, but he still takes his time.

          (At this point, he doesn’t even know if it’s because he’s avoiding the Illuminati, or Yamauchi.)

          (Maybe both.)

          But eventually, he runs out of detours to take, and there’s no place reasonably left to go besides the address he has on his phone. His feet seem to move really without his control, taking him closer to the little house on the corner of the street with the rundown door. It’s the right one, of course; he’s checked it and double checked it more times than he can really count.

          As he comes up to the doorstep, Renzou looks down at the door bell, biting his lip. Would she even be home? He made a point to come after typical business hours, when most people would already be at home and settled. It’s likely that she is home, but anxiety still has him hesitating.

          It’s when he finally forces himself to push the doorbell that the terrifying thought occurs to him that fuck, he has no idea what to say, but it’s already too late. He can hear footsteps inside the house as a hundred thoughts assault him--what is he supposed to ask her? Hey, did you happen to have a kid with a guy named Takezou, because I think I might be that kid?

           But then the door is cracking open, and a woman pokes her head out. It’s Yamauchi, of course, and her brow furrows a bit in confusion when she looks at him. Renzou thinks that he can feel his soul leaving him, in that moment.

          “Can I help you?” she asks, sounding a bit as nervous as he feels. 

          “Yeah, I-” he hesitates again, trying to think of something to say that won’t sound utterly insane. “Did you, um, did you happen to know a guy named Shima Takezou?”

          At that, Yamauchi tenses, and draws herself a bit more behind the door. “Years ago, yes. Why?” She pauses for a second, and then looks at him more intently, as if she were analyzing his features. After a pause, her eyes widen a bit, then narrow. “You’re from the Shima family, aren’t you?”

          Renzou tries to search for something to say, but in the end, it all comes out in an undignified rush. “I think I’m your son.”

          Her eyes widen impossibly, and at the same time, he slaps a hand over his mouth. God, how stupid! He was such an idiot, just dropping it like that! She’s going to slam the door in his face and call the police, Jesus Christ, he was such a dumbass!

           But Yamauchi doesn’t slam the door, and instead gapes at Renzou, stunned. Her expression begins to shift into one of tentative hope, one so raw and open that it has him choking up. He can’t think of anything else to say, but it works out in the end, because she throws the door open and hugs him so tightly that it knocks the breath out of him.

          “My Renzou!” she breathes, tearful and laughing all at once. She pulls back quickly, reaching her hands up to his face, smoothing over his cheeks and his eyebrows and his nose. Her eyes are wide and wet, her smile broad. “I should’ve known it, you have Take’s eyes, and his brow--oh, but look! My nose, my jawline!”

          Renzou ends up laughing too, because in some way, her energy is infectious. It washes away the tension in his shoulders, eases the anxiety and stress turning his stomach into knots. He can feel Yamantaka thrumming happily, as well.

          But then Yamauchi stops, suddenly, turns a little red. “Where are my manners? Come inside, please.”

          He nods, trying to temper down his smile, as she leads him in, closing the door behind him. He doesn’t even get a look at the house’s insides, too enraptured by the woman who sits him down on the couch and takes up his hands, holding them tight. 

          “You know, they always told me that you had passed away too, but I never believed it,” she says, still smiling so broadly. “I knew you were still there, I could feel it. Even if you weren’t, I knew Yamantaka would have come to me.”

          That draws him up short, and his excitement falls away to confusion. “I- passed away? And you know Yamantaka?”

          “Yes, he-” Suddenly, however, Yamauchi pauses, and her smile falls a bit as well. “...they never told you about me, did they? Yaozou-san, and Ezume-san?”

          Renzou shakes his head a little, and tries to think of a way to shorten everything that happened in the past few days. “I didn’t even… I thought they were my parents, y’know? And I thought- I thought I got my birthday mixed up, and I found my birth certificate, and… the names didn’t match up.”

          To say the least.

          Once he gets it out, there’s a terrible sort of deep hurt that crosses Yamauchi’s expression, before she takes a breath and sighs it out. Her hands are still around his own, and she squeezes his fingers, gives him a kind look. “It’s a bit of a long story, honey. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

          “Yes,” Renzou says, quickly. He wants answers. He wants to know what’s going on. He wants to know the truth.

          “Okay, then,” she pauses, like she’s gathering her thoughts, before she continues. “Your dad and I met when we were young. We were just teenagers, then, and I was living in a group home--we met at a charity drive. He and I got along so well, and-” Yamauchi stops, a little flush coming to her cheeks as she smiles, and despite the serious air, Renzou feels that same embarrassment he used to get when he saw Yaozou and Ezume flirting. 

          “Well, we were a little reckless,” She continues, looking a bit more sheepish. “We were teenagers fooling around, and, well… we were careless, and didn’t protect ourselves as well as we should. I still remember when I took that first pregnancy test, and saw those two lines,” Yamauchi squeezes his hands, and her eyes sparkle a bit when she looks at him. There’s such a fondness in her eyes that it makes his chest squeeze. “Takezou was so excited. We knew we wanted to keep you, no matter what it took.”

          He chuckles a bit--it’s weird to think about, to feel the stoic picture of his brother shifting. A teen father, and not only that, but a teen father who was excited to see his son. It changes things, but fits what he’s been told about Takezou at the same time. 

          “I never really knew anything about him,” Renzou admits, quietly. “Not from when he was alive, at least. I… really only ever heard anything about him when my family was tellin’ me that I should be more like him, I guess.”

          Her eyes darken with sympathy, and she reaches a hand up to touch his cheek again. “He loved you from the very start, honey. No matter who you were, or who you chose to be, he would’ve been so, so proud of you.”

          The words steal his breath for a moment, and bring a harsh sting to his eyes. He never would have thought that this was something he wanted to hear, or that he needed to hear. He never thought that approval, or acceptance, would’ve struck him so hard that he has to clench his jaw to keep himself under control. 

          For years, Takezou has been the wound festering away in his chest. He’s always been the brand on Renzou’s forehead, the words burned into place that always seemed to read ‘not good enough, waste of potential, waste of life’ to his family and everyone around him. And for a second, he’s angry, because how could they? How could they use his father like a whip, tearing his skin open every time he stepped out of line, until there was nothing left for him but hating the man’s very name?

          He spent years hating the legacy of Takezou created from lies, spitting on the love Takezou had left behind without even realizing it. It’s all so unfair. It’s not right.

          “I think they ruined him for me.”

          “It’ll take time,” Yamauchi tells him, and for a minute he doesn’t understand how she could be so motherly for someone having never raised a child. She has it down perfectly, enough that he can feel himself calming as she pats the back of his hand. “Would you like to see some pictures?”

          He nods silently, grateful for the chance to pull himself together as Yamauchi stands and leaves the room. There’s the faint sound of a door opening and some shuffling, and as that goes on, Renzou takes a breath and tucks his feelings away for later. It would be embarrassing if he lost control of himself on his first day meeting Yamauchi, wouldn’t it?

          When she comes back, there’s a box in her arms, stuffed full of papers and books. She sets it down on the couch between them, and he can’t help but peek in, a bit curious. There’s a few books, and a stack of letters in the corner. They’re addressed to her, and he politely averts his eyes as she pulls out the first of the books. It’s big, but clearly well loved, and she lays it out on her lap.

          “He always loved taking pictures,” Yamauchi murmurs, something low and melancholic in her voice. The first picture is one of her, clearly startled by the camera, but the one below it is of her and Takezou. His father is holding the camera up, and they’re both smiling. They look young, maybe his age or younger, but the affection between them is obvious. Yamauchi’s hand lingers on the picture fondly.

          “He took this the first time we met up outside of a charity drive,” she says. “He took me on a date out to the movie theater. It was the first time I’d ever been to one, and he paid for everything, of course. He was always doing little things like that, buying me gifts. Anything I mentioned liking or wanted, Takezou had it for me the next time I saw him.”

           That makes sense, Renzou thinks to himself. Exorcists weren’t rich or anything, but they certainly made enough money to get by.

          She flips through the pages slowly, explaining the stories behind each picture. There were dozens of them, each of them immaculately kept snippets of how the two of them had grown up together. There were pictures of them in doctors offices as well, and pictures of ultrasounds, and even one of Takezou grinning over a monitor that had the ultrasound displayed. 

          Those pictures make her chuckle. “He was at every one of the appointments, you know. Always wanted to be there, always wanted to check on me and you.”

          The look of joy on his face was pure, and unguarded; he wonders if Yamauchi had taken the picture in secret.

          But, there’s a question that refuses to let him be. Renzou shifts a bit, and she looks up at him, waiting. “How did I end up with them?” he asks her. He would’ve thought that primary custody would have stayed with Yamauchi, not Ezume and Yaozou.

          “That-” she pauses, hesitating, and looks down at the book. “It’s not a happy continuation, Renzou. Are you sure you want to hear?”

          And despite the feeling that tells him that maybe he doesn’t want to know, he nods.

Chapter Text

          When Yamauchi begins to continue the story, her hand rests on a picture of herself in a hospital bed. Takezou is curled around her, and in both of their cradled arms lies a baby swaddled up in blue. They’re both grinning at the camera, and her fingertips delicately trace the curve of Takezou’s face.

          “He wanted to take you to see his parents,” she says, quietly. “They didn’t know about you at first. He wanted to protect you and I until he knew he could introduce us safely, and one day, he thought it was time. He took you with him to Kyoto, and…”

          Renzou knows this part of the story. It’s the only part anyone has ever told him about Takezou, about the Blue Night and how Takezou had sacrificed himself to throw Renzou to safety. 

          For years, every time his family told him the story, he’d felt a deep, pervasive sense of guilt, like somehow he had been the reason for Takezou’s death. Then, when he was older, he’d felt angry—that Takezou had sacrificed himself, that Renzou had been left alive to deal with the consequences, to shoulder his older brother’s legacy and his family’s expectations.

          But now, all he feels is… grief, surprisingly. His chest feels hollow when he looks at Takezou’s grinning face, at the gentleness of his hands around Renzou’s body. It was easy to hate the faceless older brother who’d abandoned him to Yamantaka. It’s harder now to hate the excited father who’d loved him more than life itself, the one who he’d never gotten the chance to know, the one who Renzou had been wasting his entire life detesting.

          He’s always known that he’s a horrible son. It’s always been the coarse length of wood between his hands, scratching against calluses that had already been built up thick over the years, but now? It’s barbed wire around his chest, drawing blood and drawing tighter with every breath he takes. 

          “You were both gone for weeks.” Yamauchi’s voice is low and choked up, and she clears her throat before she continues. “When I asked Yaozou-san and Ezume-san if you were alright, they told me that you both passed in a demon attack.”

          And there’s the last bit of the puzzle, the last piece put back into place. He knows the story now, the true story, but the one thing he still doesn’t know yet is- “Why?”

          “I don’t know, honey.” She looks up at him, and he can tell by the resignation in her eyes that she’d had the same train of thought, and the same lack of answers. “And I guess I never will, but-” Yamauchi reaches a hand up to his cheek again, and her expression softens. “You’re enough for me, Renzou-kun. I don’t need the answers if I have you.”

          Renzou laughs a bit, and leans into her palm. It’s certainly the first time he’s ever heard something like that, or anything in that vein. It’s nice to be enough for someone, and he wishes this all were enough for him, but…

          “You still want answers, don’t you?” Yamauchi asks, but not unkindly. He gives a sheepish little nod, and she smiles. “I won’t stop you. Do you need anything from me?”

          “Do you think we could-” He hesitates for a second, a little guilty. “Do you think we could do a maternity test? Not that I don’t believe you, it’s just—y’know…”

          “I get it, hon,” Yamauchi assures him, patting his cheek. “Of course we can, when would you like to go?”

          “Could we go sometime during break?”

          “Sure thing.”

          It’s dark when Yamauchi stands out on the porch, a shawl drawn up tight around her shoulders as she watches Renzou leave. He gives her a little wave and a smile as he does so, and she waits to watch him leave down the street and out of sight. He’ll be going straight back to his dorm, she knows, which will leave her alone for the night.

          Of course, save for the shadow leaned up against her doorway. Yamauchi looks back at the man, who nods and smiles at her. The white stripe in his hair is unmistakable, as is the yellow glow of his eyes.

          “Yamauchi-chan,” Toudou greets her, bowing his head. “It’s a pleasure to see you again so soon.”

          “Cut it with the act, Toudou-san,” she cuts in. Her expression curls into a grimace without her even realizing it, but the other man does, and grins at it. “That’s all you wanted?”

          “For now, yes,” he says, looking idly at his nails.

          Yamauchi’s frown deepens, and she turns a sharp look back to him. “What more do you want?”

          Toudou shrugs nonchalantly. “It’s exactly as we told you, my dear. Your assignment is results based, not time based.”

          “You can’t keep me in this forever,” she snaps, frustration hiking her shoulders up. 

          “Can’t we?” Toudou asks, eyebrows raised. It’s then that she sees a paper held in his hands, and as he twists his wrist, she recognizes it immediately. How could she not? It was of herself and Takezou in her hospital bed, with Renzou cradled between them. Toudou’s finger lies between herself and Takezou, and the photo creases, right down across Renzou. All at once, her blood runs cold. “Don’t forget what we’ve offered you, Yamauchi-chan.”

          She swallows harshly, and turns away from him and back towards the front yard. Renzou himself is long gone, of course, but she knows that doesn’t mean he’s free from danger at all. He’s working for the Illuminati—they’ll always have an eye on him, and a hand on his shoulder. 

          No, the best way to keep him safe and see Takezou again is to play along, as disgusting as it is.

          And God, is it all disgusting.

          I t’s another week or so before they’re able to scrounge up the money together to get the test done, and even longer before they’re able to actually book an appointment. The testing is only a blood sample and an explanation of the procedure, but Renzou is nervous all the same. 

          It’ll be a definite answer this time, one that he can’t ignore or refuse, and one that will open up an even bigger rabbithole of questions and confusions. He’s forced to consider it for the first time in a long few weeks; what if she really is his mother? If that was true, it meant that Ezume and Yaozou really had run her off, lied about his and Takezou’s death, lied about Yamantaka and everything else. 

          He hopes that it’ll come back false. He hopes that it’s all some elaborate prank, that he’s just being fooled into some silly story so his brothers can make fun of him. He hopes that it’ll all be a joke, because at the thought of it being true, something dark and angry simmering just beneath his skin begins to boil up and over. It’s a type of rage and ferocity that he’s almost scared to see, a type of anger built up over years of shoving it down and away and out of sight.

          It’s much more comforting to shove it down and focus instead on the coffee between his hands, the easy and kind conversation between himself and Yamauchi. He’ll come to that when he gets there, and he’ll address it then.

          The results will be coming back over summer break, after all.