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“Rin!” Yukio fired a warning shot, the bullet skimming close to his brother’s pointed ear. “Snap out of it!”
There was so little of Rin left now that Yukio wasn’t even sure who he was talking to. The dorm around them was in ruins, smoke spiraling up from the roaring blue flames. Flames that had consumed Rin and twisted him into a creature out of Yukio’s worst nightmares.
Rin snarled and charged, flames leaping off his sword as he swung it. Yukio darted back, then dropped to the ground to roll behind a nearby wall as blue fire licked at his heels. He ejected the empty magazine from his gun and snapped another in place, tugging his second gun out of his belt before diving back out into open space to open fire on his brother.
The demon howled as holy bullets caught it along one shoulder. The face was so twisted now. Rin’s boyish charm was gone, his skin split open around jagged horns that had erupted from his brow and chin.
He was nothing more than the spawn of Satan now. This wasn’t the brother Yukio had sworn to protect. The son Shiro had given his life for.
This was nothing more than Satan’s child, and as it turned its white-hot eyes on Yukio he steeled himself for what had to be done.
“You brought this on yourself, Rin,” he called, sighting with both guns to hit center mass instead of the limbs. To kill, not incapacitate.
It charged. Yukio fired again and again. The bullets seemed to bounce harmlessly off the demon’s hardened flesh, and he dove out of the way as Rin (wasn’t Rin anymore) got close enough to take a swipe at him.
The heat from the blue flames was unbearable. He’d lost his glasses long ago, and the flesh on his arms and legs was starting to sizzle. The stories of the Blue Night…the priests and exorcists dying in agony…had they felt this pain?
Rin (not Rin) roared again. Yukio grit his teeth and ran, twisting at the waist to fire at the demon’s head. He heard a piercing shriek as he managed to hit it in the eye, though it seemed to do little enough damage.
It was like fighting Satan himself. Rin (couldn’t be Rin) was unstoppable. Blind in one eye, blood leaking like black ichor down its face, the demon charged at Yukio again. He dropped to one knee, raised both guns, aimed for the bloody wound on the demon’s face.
A spurt of dark blood fountained up as his first shot hit true. Yukio fired again and again and again. Each shot carved away a little more of the demon’s skull, slowed it down, dulled the flames.
He could almost breathe again. The flames were dying, snowflakes landing on the burned flesh of his arms without melting away instantly.
The church, their home (hadn’t they been in the dorms?) was in shambles around them.
And Rin (just Rin), was stumbling toward him with a hand over one eye. “Yuki…Yukio?”
“Rin!” Yukio was on his feet, running for his brother, his arms suddenly whole and unburned. “Rin, what happened?”
He managed to catch his brother before he fell, dropping his guns to support his sagging weight. “It’ll be okay,” he babbled. “Rin, let me see.” Yukio tugged at his brother’s hand, tried to coax it away from his damaged face.
“Yuki…o?” Rin was slipping away. His body was suddenly too heavy to hold, and it pulled Yukio down. The ground sank beneath them as they fell, together. Into a vast, twisted landscape. Shadow and flames and the hideous cries of demons rose up all around them as they fell.
And Rin’s body burst into bright blue flames.
Yukio shot up with a gasp, hands covering his mouth to muffle his cry. It was just a dream. Another of those damned nightmares. He’d been having them almost every night ever since he and Rin had left the monastery to come to True Cross Academy.
Rin.
He slowly turned in his bed until he could place his feet on the floor and stared across the room at his brother’s sleeping figure. It was just Rin, same as always (with a few exceptions). Arms and legs (and tail) tangled up in the blankets, mouth wide open (showing fangs).
The nightmare was still fresh in Yukio’s mind. The Rin in his dreams, taken over by the power of Satan, was nothing like the brother he was watching now.
It wouldn’t happen. Rin would rather die than turn into that.
Yukio would rather kill him than….
“Hm. Yukio?”
Startled, Yukio suddenly realized his brother was staring at him. He’d been so lost in thought he hadn’t even noticed Rin waking up. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
Rin struggled up to lean on his elbows, squinting at him in the dim light of their dorm room. “What’s wrong?” he mumbled; voice still heavy with sleep.
Yukio had to smile. Typical Rin, always the big brother. “Nothing’s wrong, I just had a nightmare.”
His brother stared at him some more, then flopped back down on his bed with a heavy sigh. To Yukio’s surprise, Rin scooted over to the edge of his bed, then held his arms open and gestured toward Yukio.
“Well? Come on,” Rin said impatiently. “I don’t ha—augh. Have all night,” he added, yawning as he spoke.
Yukio shook his head. How many times had he gone running to his big brother after a nightmare? They were almost sixteen now—he was an exorcist and a teacher—yet he found himself slowly climbing to his feet and walking across the room to his brother’s bed.
Rin yanked him in as soon as he was within arm’s reach and wrapped his arms around him. “’S not fair,” he mumbled. “How come you got bigger’n me?”
“Who knows.”
His brother had gone to three different stores to find the same laundry detergent they used at the monastery. When Yukio closed his eyes, his face tucked against his brother’s shoulder, he could almost believe they were home again. That real life had been the nightmare, and their father would wake them up in the morning and scold Rin for being fired from yet another job.
Rin’s tail brushed Yukio’s side, curling around him. Kuro, who slept on Rin’s pillow, stretched out enough to rub his face against Yukio’s forehead. “Don’t worry, Yukio,” he said, his words slurring together as he drifted back to sleep. “Big brother’s still scarier than any of those monsters out there.”
Yukio’s hands clenched in the thin fabric of his brother’s t-shirt. He heard Rin’s breathing even out as he fell back asleep, and he clenched his jaw hard enough to grind his teeth together as he fought to control his emotions.
“I know that,” he whispered, too soft to wake his brother up. “But I really wish you weren’t.”