Fandom: Blue Exorcist / Ao no Exorcist

Summary: "Yukio… You knew it would always end like this, didn't you?"

Warnings: Mild descriptions of gore and adult language

Satanic flames bathed everything in an eerie blue glow. Pieces of rubble from destroyed buildings burned with the unholy fire, which seemed to remain lit without end. Where it burned, it did not harm. The fire ate nothing unless commanded. In this state, it was nothing but a warm light

Where there was once solid and smooth concrete, there were now the remains of both demon and human alike strewn about the floor in a bloodied, gruesome mess. Chunks of limbs and organs littered the ground in sickening quantities. The smell alone was enough to ward the unsuspecting bystander from getting too close; the bodies had already begun to decompose thanks to demonic influence.

Rin looked around him at the carnage, detached from it all. His hands hung limply at his sides as he burned with his own fire. He could recognize a few faces from the piles of corpses, teachers that he'd seen in the halls, a few that taught him and his classmates, but the vast majority were people he'd never seen before in his life, people that had rushed in when the Vatican called for action.

His sword was still stuck in the body of a demon he'd just felled, a few meters away from him. He'd left it there, too spent to make the effort of pulling it out of the mass of muscle that he'd forced it through. It cooked the flesh of the long-dead boar that had been possessed for possibly centuries, and only worsened the putrid scent that permeated the air. His eyes gazed at the sword in vague want, but he made no move to grab it. There was no point now.

He couldn't will himself to cry for the dead, or rage in their stead. Rin knew somewhere that this wasn't how he would've reacted normally; this distinct lack of reaction was the exact opposite of what should've happened.

'Huh. Rain.' There was a light drizzle coming down, steadily putting out the blue flames one by one, until the only blue light came from his sword and from his body. But even those were slightly dimmed from the water that fell from the clouded sky. The same sky that only a few hours previous was filled with sunlight and warm laughter.

The son of Satan stood there, looking up at the sky through his shadowed eyes. The rain tamed his untameable mop of hair, forcing it down until it clung to his scalp. It soaked his clothing, making it all the more difficult to move from where he stood. It made his tail feel like lead, despite the fire that coated it. It was freezing and numbing, chilling him to his very bones, but leaving him very unmoved. If Rin thought about it for too long, he could've convinced himself that he'd been turned into stone for all to see.

Something shifted in his peripheral, and almost before he'd had a chance to think about what it could mean, his body fluidly pulled the sword from its make-shift scabbard and held it to the throat of the trespasser. When Rin next blinked, he noticed himself several meters from where he previously stood, ready to kill.

He froze as he recognized pale skin (not a demon maybe a demon too warm too warm) and blond hair (means nothing possession possession). The boy pulled his sword from the fragile neck as though he'd been burned and stared in shock. He took stock of her injuries, smelled her scent as it informed him about what he couldn't see, and kneeled in front of the small body. "S-Shiemi?" he croaked out.

"Rin," she whispered, her throat raspy as though she'd been screaming for her whole life, eyes wide and watery as though she'd nearly lost the one thing that would save her from death. "Rin, y-you're alive!"

He gave her a shaky grin, painfully aware of how much blood he had on him, how much blood she had on her. "'Course! I got better things to do than die here." They were quiet, not eager to break the sudden silence that overtook the school-turned-battlefield.

"Ah, Shiemi, we should get you outta here. You got blood all over you." Strangely calm. Why was he so calm?

He pulled her up without waiting for her input, instantly regretting doing so. He heard something shift before he heard her cry out, and he immediately put her body back where it was. Her broken body.

"M-My legs," she whimpered, but he knew. He'd known. He pretended, but he'd known. They were impossible to miss unless you truly didn't want to see. Both her legs were crushed under the weight of a stone pillar that had cracked in two. They were bent at odd angles, he saw that as soon as he'd realized who he pointed his blade at. Why did he even think to pull her up?

"Oh. Yeah." What more could he say? There was nothing to say. Nothing could be said about the fighting, the murdering, the chaos that befell their school. He could say nothing to defend himself, nothing could make this right. It was all his fau-

"Rin!" he finally looked at her, shaken out of his thoughts when she'd banged his knee. "Don't think this is your fault!" Her voice wavered and croaked. "Y-you didn't force anyone to do anything, you didn't fail to protect u-us, and-and we won't ever blame you for anything!"

"Shiemi, but you're-" he grit his teeth and bowed his head forcefully, hair obscuring most of his face from her. "Shiemi, you…" the words wouldn't come out, but they both knew what he was going to say.

Shiemi was dying. She was bleeding out from multiple lacerations on her body if the small pool of red-tinged water was anything to judge by. There was no one nearby that could reach them in time, and there was no way he could take her to a hospital without causing even more damage. But she smiled, albeit shaky and none too convincing. "I-it's okay Rin. It's okay. It'll be okay."

He punched the ground beside him and she flinched at the sudden movement. He froze when she seemed afraid, but relaxed when he realized it wasn't fear of him, but for him. "None of this is okay," he mumbled, barely able to get the words out as his throat closed up in an effort to choke him. "It'll never be okay."

They shared a somber silence, a moment to grieve for their loss. Rin held his sword loosely in his hands, wanting to throw it down the deepest pits of Gehenna, but not having the strength or will to do it. Rin curled his tail so that its tuft was between them, the blue fire that emanated from it the only warmth they had in the suddenly cold world. "'M sorry it's blue."

"It's okay," Shiemi said. "It's warm." The two shared the warmth from his tail as Shiemi's wounds bled sluggishly, as she died slowly. There was no point in putting pressure on her wounds, she would die long before there was any help available. Wrapping her body in bandages and slowing the bleeding would just prolong the pain she was in. Unless...

"Yukio…" Rin mumbled, eyes wide, and began to tear at his clothing with his fangs with urgency. Shiemi raised her eyes from his flaming tail to what he was doing, the blood loss now taking its toll on her thought process. "Rin, what are you…?"

"Yukio has to be around here! He can help!" He used his nose to find the most important gashes. Luckily, most of her clothing had been ripped where her skin had begun to bleed. The cuts themselves were small, but they were many. Blood flowed from each one, slowly, but the sheer number of cuts was significant enough to drain her of blood. Hopefully, he could bandage her well enough without moving her. "I don't have enough control to sear 'em closed, but this'll help. 'Till I can find Yukio, at least."

'God, I'm an idiot. Giving up so soon... What the hell is wrong with me?' But there was no time to think about it. He was already tieing up the last of the bandages he'd made from his school uniform. He just hoped the rain didn't make it worse than it already was.

Rin grabbed his sword (he'd lost his scabbard somewhere in the heat of the battle, he realized) and dashed away, yelling at Shiemi to stay alive. There were corpses everywhere, bodies of possessed animals and exorcists everywhere he turned. "Yukio! Where are you, Yukio?!"

He'd forgotten everything when he killed that last demon. The blood of battle was distracting, he could hardly tell friend from foe. If they attacked him, they were definitely a foe, so he ended their lives with one fatal stroke, maybe another if they were particularly persistent. When he ran out of foes, he made his blue flames into a beacon to attract even more enemies.

But that wasn't important, Yukio was. Where was he when the battle started? Did he see him after that pause in time, where everything stills before an attack is launched? Where would Yukio go to be the most effective? Would he fight, then give medical aid, or was it the other way around? Why would Rin's memories always blank when it's the most important?

Bodies bodies bodies everywhere; demon, animal, exorcist, familiar. Everywhere he turned he just found more people, more crumbling buildings, more dead-

"Yukio!" He screamed and flared his flames without regard to the rain. He'd climbed onto a broken wall—maybe it wasn't a wall, maybe it was once something else, who knew anymore?—and screamed into the steady dripping of the rain. The sky and the rain ignored what happened in both Assiah and Gehenna. It didn't care who lived or died. It didn't care if anything lived or died. It was immovable, unchangeable, and so damn frustrating.

A sound. A twitch of something, somewhere to his right. Rin pounced on it immediately, removing the rubble that tried to hide that something from him. He used his elongated nails (claws he's a demon they're claws) to speed up his digging. He flung stone and boulders from what was below, because it was Yukio, it had to be Yukio where was Yukio Yukio please don't be-

A voice, so quiet he almost didn't catch it over the sound of rain, even with his enhanced hearing. "N-Nii-san…" He could see his little brother, through that little crack in between the rocks, but oh God, it was enough.

Rin nearly cried out from the relief of hearing his little brother's voice, seeing his jaw move to form the words and his eyes light up in recognition. His little brother was alive, would live to see another day, would survive to see many days because he was Yukio and Yukio would never die. Rin would never let Yukio die, so long as he existed.

"Yukio! Yukio, Yukio, Yukio," he kept digging, careful with his nails (claws) when they got too close to his body. He couldn't care less about anything else but getting Yukio out and making it safe for him. He promised he would protect Yukio, and he was failing to fulfill that promise, but maybe if he digs him out, takes him away from here, never lets him out of his sight, maybe then he could be forgiven.

And as he removed that last stone from Yukio's oddly still body (he's still breathing it's fine he's alive he's breathing), he found out why Yukio hadn't gotten out himself. There wasn't that much stone on him, he could've gotten out himself without demonic strength aiding him. But he wouldn't have been able to with that metal rod poking through his abdomen.

"Yukio, you… you can't…" It was unthinkable. Unimaginable. But it was there for everyone to see. He dropped to his knees in front of his brother, utterly defeated. His little brother just looked at Rin, the bags under his eyes too pronounced, the blood on his lips too red.

"I'm sorry," Yukio choked out. He sat on the stone floor with his back against a slab of concrete, almost appearing as though he was just resting, like so many other dead bodies that Rin found. Those corpses looked like they had just planned to sit down for a moment and catch their breath. They never got up again after that.

"Don't say sorry!" Rin shouted, unable to tear away his eyes from the metal rod that created a gaping wound in his little brother's body. An excuse not to look him in the eye. "N-Nothin' to be sorry for. 'S my fault."

"Rin." He didn't say more. Rin wasn't sure if it was because he didn't have the breath or the words to refute him. But, like he did with Shiemi, he moved his tail between the two of them. If everyone was gonna die around him, the least he could do was to give them something warm to help keep away the cold of the rain.

'Shiemi… Shiemi must be dead by now.' He'd lost track of time. He wasn't sure if it'd been minutes or hours since he'd seen her. 'I wonder if everyone else is dead too. Bon, Shima, Konekomaru, Izumi, Shura.' There were so many faces he'd seen. If they weren't wandering around the battlefield after it was over, then they could only be dead.

"Is there anyone left?" he mumbled, void of all emotion.

"Nii-san…" Yukio was surprised when Rin seemingly shook himself from his shock and moved to sit beside him.

"...That's some rain, huh Yukio? Pretty cold too. You could almost pretend it's snow." Rin stared up into the sky, smiling at what he'd been screaming at only minutes before. He let it try and douse his flames, for all intents and purposes appearing as though he was unaffected by the death that lay scattered around them.

"The rain…?" Yukio hadn't even noticed it. The organs that had been ruptured from the metal sent white hot pain signals to his brain and refused to be ignored. Perhaps that was why he'd never noticed the rain. "Yeah, I guess you could."

"Dad once said we were born in the winter. Said it was a snowy day when he found us."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Wonder if that old geezer was telling the truth."

"I'm sure he was."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

They both laughed, but Yukio coughed and sputtered at the end of it. Rin's smile tightened, but there was nothing he could do. There was no enemy to fight now, no beast that could be beaten with his fire. He didn't have the slightest clue about helping Yukio, just like how he didn't know what to do with Shiemi.

He abandoned Shiemi to look for Yukio, and doesn't that just show off his demonic heritage? His inherent selfishness? Isn't it right to punish him by taking the most important person in the world?

Well, the least he could do for Yukio was be there for him as he passed away. Maybe he'd find a way to follow him into the afterlife after he made sure Yukio's last moments on Earth weren't lonely and cold. Then he could be with his friends again.

"Yukio… You knew it would always end like this, didn't you? C'mon, you're smart."

Yukio's breaths were even more labored now. Rin kept his hand tightly clasped in Yukio's and tried to envelop him in his fire's warmth. It tired him out to keep his flames constantly extended outside of him, but he would do anything for his little brother.

"You knew we'd never have a happy ending. I mean, we're the fuckin' sons of Satan. There's no way we woulda had a nice time."

He wasn't even sure if Yukio was really listening now. Rin just kept babbling to fill the silence. If he was quiet for too long, the only thing they'd hear would be the rain and Yukio's breathing. And, if he listened closely, he could still hear the echoes of battle in the air. Better to babble than to listen to that.

"Not only that, but the guy that took us in was the Paladin. The goddamn Paladin, Yukio! We'd never even be normal, even if we were totally human."

He tried not to notice the stench of Yuko's blood as it stained his clothes black. As it pooled around them both. As it seemed to pull some demons out of hiding.

"Heheh, maybe we'd be better off if you were the one who got Satan's flames instead. You woulda gotten control over them as soon as you got 'em. Hell, I bet you'd be able to do some fancy tricks with 'em, too."

Rin would squeeze Yukio's hand, and Yukio would squeeze back. It was fine if Yukio didn't want to talk. Yukio was always a quiet kid, so he'd do all the talking for him.

"But if we both had those flames, we woulda been unstoppable. We coulda beat back Satan so hard, he'd never try to get into Assiah again."

He sent a warning glare as a few demons got too close for comfort. The majority of them were just some young hobgoblins, but he couldn't chance it. He'd kill them without a thought if they got too close to Yukio.

"But we still wouldn't get a happy ending with that. Sons of Satan, remember? Vatican would torch our asses soon as we stopped bein' useful."

Yukio's squeezes were getting weaker. His breaths were getting shorter.

'Nii-san… It hurts…'

'Yukio, just hang in there a little longer.'

"Anyways, I guess it's not really good to think about shit like that. The what-ifs and if-onlys can drive you crazy. 'S not healthy."

Keep watching for the breaths. Keep squeezing so he can squeeze back. Keep listening to his heart beating.

"But a little bit of unhealthy is healthy too. What was that saying? 'Everything in mediums?' I dunno, something like that."

…

"Hey, Yukio. Why don't you say something? Say something for your dear nii-san."

At some point, he left the corpse there. It wasn't raining anymore, so maybe it was a while before he left. Or maybe the clouds didn't want to rain forever.

It didn't matter what the clouds wanted. Nothing mattered. Everyone was dead.

He did a search throughout the campus and even went further down into the town in hopes of finding someone. But there were just more bodies, more rotting corpses. There wasn't even so much as a Coal Tar in most places. It was utterly devoid of life everywhere.

(If he looked closely, he could even see some bugs that decided that it was a good day to die. Shima would've loved it.)

There was an odd ringing sound in his head as he ascended the steps to the former academy. It'd been ringing for a while now, but it was starting to become bothersome.

He should probably go to sleep.

But no, there was too much to do. He had to honor the dead before any demons got the bright idea to possess any of the corpses

He'd burn them into nothingness if they dared.

But maybe it was alright if he slept a bit. Not in his dorm room, of course, but among the dead. He would join them soon enough, so it didn't really matter. Nothing mattered.

Everyone was dead, so nothing mattered.

He didn't know how long it'd been when he found Mephisto.

In the days after the battle—or maybe you could call it a war, or a massacre—Rin occupied himself with burying the dead or burning what was left. Each grave was marked by a wooden post that he'd rip from wooden gates and the like. Each post gave their name, age, and the day that they died. If he couldn't find their ID, he just gave a physical description on each one. Maybe they had family from out of town. With a description of what the body looked like, at least they had some hope of finding the person they lost.

Too many of the people left were just pieces of scattered body parts. There was no hope of giving them any sort of description aside from how much red they left behind.

The sun was setting when he finally made it back to the steps of True Cross Academy. That was where he found Mephisto, sitting on his conjured chair with a pensive look on his face as he looked over his school. Rin, too numb to react much more than a slight widening of his eyes, jumped up to where Mephisto sat. The two shared a silence as they stared at nothing, Mephisto in his chair and Rin beside him atop the ledge of a crumbling building.

"Almost thought you were dead," Rin finally broke the silence, quietly and without much inflection in his voice.

"You really think I could allow myself to die here?" Mephisto laughed. "Honestly boy, you wound me."

Rin huffed and turned his head to look opposite of the other demon. "Not my fault you look weak as hell."

Another silence, and then, "Oi, Mephisto. Is it like this everywhere else?"

A beat. "More or less. There are a considerable number of survivors in most other places, but only the most rural of locations appear somewhat untouched."

"Ah. That's okay, I guess."

The sun was setting as normal. But if Rin thought about it, it looked much more red than it usually did.

"Why'd you come back?" Something to fill the silence between the two. Rin didn't want to sit next to the only living thing for miles and not have some sort of conversation. He'd go crazy with the stillness of the air.

"Should I have a reason to visit the place I spent over two hundred years at?"

"If you're a demon, yeah."

"You happen to be a demon as well, Okumura-kun."

"'S different. I was human for most my life."

He laughed. "Well, I suppose you do have a point there. Why did I return to my broken toy box?" Mephisto hummed in thought. "Perhaps to pay what respects I can to the dead. Or maybe these two centuries helped me form some sort of attachment to this place. Or, most likely," he turned to gaze at Rin, and Rin turned to meet his gaze, "I came to see if the sons of Satan were still breathing."

Rin was silent, then looked back towards the setting sun. It'd finally touched the horizon. "Yukio's dead."

"Ah, I apologize. Son of Satan."

The sun finally dipped under the horizon. Soon its light would leave as well.

"What is it that you plan to do now? Everyone you knew is dead, and around the world, only a small percentage of the human population is still breathing. There are a few options available to you now, but none end with the happy ending that so many humans desire."

He gestured towards the ground of the school, where there was still much work to be done to remove the blood and gore from the paths and gardens. "You could continue to slave away here and bury each individual person in this town, thereby redeeming yourself in your eyes. You would remain here until you died a natural death, but perhaps you could try to travel the world on foot now that the only transportation systems left are automated, and even those will only last a few years without people to perform maintenance."

"You could also try killing yourself, saving you from years of torment and allowing you to join your loved ones in whatever life awaits you after death. I personally wouldn't judge you for such a human reaction towards all this death, you being only half demon, but it certainly isn't the most fun choice."

"There is a third option where you can finally take your place as Prince of Gehenna and heir to Satan's throne, as well as become his personal servant in Assiah, allowing yourself to be possessed by him at a moment's notice."

He grinned as he had been his entire speech. "So, what will you do?"

Rin stared at where the sun had set. Everything Mephisto had said was true. Suicide was the easiest choice, but it wasn't the right one. He couldn't look Yukio in the eyes if he chose to end his life then and there, assuming there was an afterlife where he'd be able to see Yukio and his friends again. Traveling the world seemed nice, but without anyone to share his experiences with, what was the point? He wouldn't get very far anyway. He'd only be able to travel all of Japan before his traveling ended. Maybe Mephisto would give him some keys to leave Japan, but there was just no point without any friends. And bowing to Satan after all this…

Unacceptable. He would never let everyone's sacrifice be for nothing.

"Mephisto. Satan is the god of demons, right?"

Mephisto blinked, but answered quickly. "Of course. He is the strongest of demons and revered by all inhabitants of Gehenna, with only a small number of exceptions."

"So if Satan's god in Gehenna, then there's no way that there's a demon with a power that he doesn't have, right?"

The demon put a finger to his chin in thought. "That reasoning is certainly sound, but Satan's abilities remain a mystery even to me. Aside from the blue flames, that is."

Rin summoned his fire to his hands and watched the flame dance. "And if I inherited his fire, then I coulda gotten some of his other abilities too. Especially if he thinks I'm a good enough vessel to hold his power in Assiah."

Mephisto's eyes narrowed. "Just what are you getting at, Okumura-kun?"

Rin snuffed out his fire by clenching his hands. "The Baal are his sons too, and they got all kinds of abilities. I know that one of 'em is the King of Time and Space. A king of time should be able to turn back time too, right? Iblis is the King of Fire, and he didn't get Satan's flames, but he got weaker flames. If the King of Time can't turn back time, maybe he didn't get complete mastery of time either, and Satan has that. If I got Satan's flames, who's to say I didn't get any of his other powers too?"

Rin clenched his teeth and could feel fire burning through his veins. "I wanna know if I can turn back time. If I can do that, then I can save everyone."

The demon beside him stared in astonishment. The King of Time and Space not having mastery over that which he ruled? Impossible! Unthinkable! And yet, Okumura Rin saw a possibility where Mephisto had never considered it.

"Bravo, Young Okumura! That is truly a magnificent hypothesis! And here I thought Okumura-sensei was the only one of you twins capable of such thought!" he clapped his gloved hands, enjoying how the elder Okumura still showed some irritation at the jest. "In fact, perhaps I shall assist you in this endeavor."

Rin raised an eyebrow. "I dunno if I want a clown to help me with this one."

"I assure you, Okumura-kun, you would not regret my assistance." Mephisto stood and bowed with a hand over his chest. "In fact, I believe it may be vital."

Rin huffed, but nodded in acquiescence. "Sure, sure. Whatever. 'S not like I know where to start, anyways."

Working with Mephisto was… interesting, to say the least.

Mephisto (Samael, King of Time and Space, son of Satan, half-brother) wasn't as involved with teaching him as Yukio or Shura had been. He tended to just tell Rin what he had to do and then left him up to his own devices. It was almost like he was just a spectator. One day, Rin commented on how little Mephisto did aside from just watch him struggle through the lessons.

Mephisto just laughed and said something along the lines of 'It's more entertaining to watch you struggle.'

'What a jerk.'

But still, he couldn't complain. Mephisto was the only demon he knew that could bend time. He could freeze people in place, freeze their lives so that they lived far beyond when they should have died, and accelerate time to make people appear to die instantaneously. He just pushed the fast-forwards button on a person's heart, and he had instant heart failure.

"But I must say, I've never gone backward," Mephisto confessed one day when Rin managed to freeze some falling stones in place for over an hour. Honestly, Rin felt as though he could keep the stones there for much longer, but the elder demon suggested otherwise.

"I've never been interested in the past. I've lived for so long, there's no need to go back and see something that I never saw. I've seen it all. It is the future that I desire to see."

"Well I'm gonna go back, not forwards. So this better help me do that." Rin could feel the streams of time under his fingers, barely there, but definitely there. To stop the rocks from falling, he had to pause their river of time, block it with his own will the way a beaver would build a dam. And like the dam, if he blocked it for too long, he'd risk overflowing the river. That left a tired Okumura and some falling rocks.

"To redirect the flow of time is new and exciting! Quite honestly, I cannot help but try to do it myself." Mephisto grinned at his gloved hands and mimed what Rin guessed was how he thought he could redirect it. "However, I do in fact have all the time in the world to do this. You, on the other hand, only have until Satan decides to make his move."

Fortunately, Rin didn't take quite so long. He was able to turn back time in increasing amounts, and Mephisto nearly exploded from excitement each time.

"Through our trials, it appears that you tend to replace the Okumura-kun of the previous timeline with your own self." Mephisto noted. "There have been a few instances where you were able to carry objects with you to the past, but this costs you much more energy. However, this can be minimized if you chose not to replace the Okumura-kun of the past, but that also comes with its own risks."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Accidental absorption and all that shit." One of the trials they'd done was to see if two Rin's could exist at the same time. Rin was apprehensive about it, having heard many stories about how that sort of thing could destroy the universe, but as it turned out, nothing like that happened. No, instead the risk lied with the two Rins coming together to form a single Rin with the memories of both. "That gives me the worst fuckin' headache, man."

"If you so chose, you could be a messenger outside of time. You could carry letters sent by people from the future to that past and vice versa. However," Mephisto looked at Rin from where he sat with a clipboard in hand, "you have other goals in mind."

Rin nodded. He stood in the center of the courtroom of the Vatican, a fitting place to do something so momentous, in Mephisto's opinion. Rin had long since cleaned out the bodies from the once pristine and regal court. He hadn't bothered to fix the architectural damage. That was too much like trying to forget, and Rin never wanted to forget.

He'd visited the graves of Yukio and his friends before he came to the courtroom. He gave each of them an update on his life and apologies for taking so long to come see them. He gave them all apologies for not being able to save them, and a promise that he would make it right again. Shiemi, especially, he gave his deepest regrets. He'd abandoned her in her final moments, something he would never forgive himself for. 'I'll never do it again. Never.'

He went to the grave of Father Fujimoto the day before. It'd been awhile since he'd visited the old man, and he didn't want him thinking that Rin forgot about him. He gave Shiro the rundown on what he was going to try and asked for his blessing. The headstone didn't reply, it would've been weird if it did, but Rin smiled anyways and bowed. He'd never been the perfect son, he'd probably been the son that Shiro only put up with out of love, but he was going to make it right. Maybe he could go far back enough to save him. Maybe he could live with both his father and his brother in his life.

"It's time," Rin said, the words echoing through the empty courtroom. He pulled out Kurikura from its scabbard and let his flames swallow him for a moment. Just a moment to forget. But not for long.

He used his fire to empower him, to strengthen his grasp on the rivers of time. He reached for as much as he could, and where he could no longer do so, he sent out his flames to do the rest. Distantly, he could hear Mephisto whooping in the background.

And so Rin pushed back the rivers, reversed their direction, and he felt everything but the silvery water fall away.

Mephisto continued to cheer until Rin faded from his vision. It was magnificent, the way the boy warped the rivers to his command to send him back to wherever he chose. Sooner or later, Samael suspected he would either be part of a separate timeline or he would cease to exist, now that the boy was gone. The demon sat back in the chair he'd conjured and drank his tea.

"So, Okumura Rin… Now that you have a chance to rewrite your story, how will you handle the position as your own author?"

This will probably remain a oneshot since I wrote it mostly for the visuals in the beginning. I accidentally ran away with it and decided maybe there would be other people who'd think it was cool.

Fun fact: The name I originally gave this was 'Ayyy Rin's master of time or some shit.'

If anyone has a better idea for a summary, I'm open to suggestions!

Edit: There's a sequel up now! Make It Okay will be a muti-chapter fic that follows the events that happen after Rin's attempt to go back.