Who: Rin Okumura & Shiro Fujimoto What: Reuniting???? HUH? When: Friday afternoon Where: Outside of Reality HQ Status: Closed, Ongoing Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Beginning of Blue Exorcist Season 1 and Chapter 120 of the manga spoilers
There were very few things in the world that terrified Rin.
The dark was nothing. The nephilim could charge head first into the blackness with not so much as a thought behind what could be waiting out there for him. In the end, most things in his life were similar to that of the dark. Unknown, constantly changing. The hallways twisting, turning. Jettisoning him all across the multiverse like a plaything. Yet it didn't scare him. The nephilim welcomed the challenge. Then there were smaller fears, like spiders. Sure, prickly as they were, Rin knew a simple cup under newspaper would be enough to get rid of them. Or stamping on them with an old shoe. And while the ocean and all that dwelled beneath it in it's vastness and uncertainty would drown him without hesitation, Rin did not fear it. Fire wasn't meant to mix with water, but that did not bother him.
And although his future was perhaps the most terrifying concept out there, Rin could do nothing more than to hold his head high and charge into that blindly, too. An exorcist exam back home meant life or death. Come December he'd be an adult, finally on his own for real. Without the constant fear of running from who he was, he'd allowed himself to calm down. Just live. Even if it was just only for a little while. Back home there would be that ever present danger. Rin knew, if given the chance, he would go back. There were people waiting for him there. And when he did return, even if dim-witted, he would stare down that peril he'd turned his back on in Eerie Harbor. Armies of demons were child's play, and piles of homework and bad grades meant nothing to him.
Fearless, recklessly stupid, as Yukio always said. One of these days you're going to get yourself killed, Rin. Couldn't give less of a crap about that. Rin didn't fear death. But he most certainly didn't want to die. Not right now. Not before he could do what he was born to do.
If there was one thing he was scared of: it was blue. Blue. Blue that wasn't his. That scared him.
Blue that consumes. Blue that trickles all across the skin and leaves nothing but ash. Blue that had no conviction, or care for the people it touched. That once it began to burn it wouldn't stop until it's hunger was satisfied, leaving nothing in it's wake. Blue that kills.
Blue that wasn't warm. Blue that didn't save or worry about the people around it.
Blue that wasn't his to command.
He talked boldly of kicking Satan's ass. Each and every day. If anyone was going to be the one to put an end to him, it would be Rin. It was his damn birthright, afterall. Not Bon, not Shima, not Yukio or Shura or any of the Vatican. But Rin. Rin Okumura. He would do it. And there was no damn way he was going to die before he could.
He could never forget that night because of it. When his life changed forever.
Through nightmares, every once in a while he relived the night over. When his old man's eyes were glazed over with streaks of red flowing down them. Claws sharp enough to cut and a voice the furthest thing from human. The muffled screaming of the Gehenna Gate and his heartbeat burning in his ears. Quick thinking turned into slow-motion. A sharp jab, a demented roar, and the slick release of a blade that sent about a blaze just as bright blue and dangerous as the one that threatened to drag him into the unknown. He always woke up trembling, sobbing quietly like a child without their favorite toy. No matter where he was, True Cross Academy, Eerie Harbor, or his dorm in Imagination, the terrors followed him. A grim reminder that if he had just moved faster, used his head, and taken back the words that left his tongue so easily, then maybe Shiro Fujimoto, the man who raised him, would still be alive and well today.
And it was all his fault.
If anything was going to motivate--hell, kick him in the ass to beat the ever-living shit out of Satan, it was that. That night. He owed it, at least to his old man.
It had been two years since that day. At least. Rin tried to count as best he could in between jumps.
At first when Rin saw the message on the network he thought he was going crazy. It wasn't uncommon to see some pretty wild shit every now and again. That damn event back in October, for one. Aqueous turning into a friggin' kid, as another. But his goddamn old man? It was new. He didn't know what to think. Jumping to flame the bastard for impersonation was the first thing. But as they spoke more, it got harder and harder to deny that the person he was talking to wasn't his old man. If Shima can be from the future...then maybe...
Rin had never moved faster.
He darted through the city. Past the funnel cake vendor and cut through downtown, weaving his way through crowds of people waiting in line to get in the rollercoaster monorail. Reality's headquarters wasn't in an area of town he was familiar with. But he'd be damned if he got lost.
Slowing to a speeding halt, Rin stopped a few feet short of Shiro Fujimoto. He did a double take, the man who had raised him did not look a day over the last time he'd seen him. Healthy. Eyes intact, fingernails the right length, and not a sight of blue anywhere around him.
It really is...
"Dad," Rin choked, his feet moving before his mind could. Pulling the man into a hug. "I'm sorry." His voice was small.