Disclaimer: I do not own Ao no Exorcist/Blue Exorcist or anything recognizable.

Hello there guys, gals, and pals! This is one of the final chapters. There will either be one or two more chapters coming out soon. However many it ends up being, the last chapter will be followed by an epilogue.

When Rin came back to conciousness - if you can call it that - the only thing he felt was pain. His throat burned like fire, and his chest felt like he had been stabbed with a thousand knives. Rin tried to call out, tried to alert the others, but he couldn't breath. With every gasp of air, his body reverberated with searing hot pain. He tried his best to take in a breathe of air, but the air got caught in his throat and made him cough, sputtering water everywhere.

Everything hurt. Everything burned.

Rin couldn't breathe, he couldn't hear, he couldn't see. Had he died? But if he was dead, why did everything hurt so much?

Rin tried to pry open his eyes, but the light was too bright, blinding even. His eyes snapped shut instantly. Something was grabbing at him, poking and prodding at his neck and forcing his eyes open. Rin tried to swat the hands away, but found that his arms were too heavy to move.

His hearing was slowly returning to him, but everything sounded like unintelligible garbled noises with a few words thrown into the mix.

"...alive?"

"...he's breathing..."

"...why would he..."

Rin forced his eyes open again. Everything was still uncomfortably bright, but it was easier to keep his eyes open this time. His vision was still out of focus. Despite his bleary surroundings, he could make out the worried faces of Yukio, Bon, and Shima kneeling beside him and hovering over him. Rin watched their lips move, but he still couldn't understand them. Why hadn't they figured out that he couldn't hear them? Rin looked around and saw that he was on the floor of the bathroom. Why was everything wet?

Rin tried to speak, but all he could manage was a low rasping sound. His throat felt raw and gritty. He started coughing again, pain shooting through his body hurting with every move.

'Well, I'm definitely alive.' Rin thought, 'Everything hurts too much to be dead.'

Yukio rolled Rin onto his side, and Rin groaned. His chest ached and protested against every movement. Now on his side, Rin felt the water start to come back up, making him gag. Water mixed with bile came up into his mouth. He coughed and spat it out as best he could, but the bitter taste remained. Rin stayed on his side until he stopped coughing water up. The last few mouthfuls of water tasted strange and metallic.

"Is that blood? Why's he coughing up blood?" A voiced asked in alarm. Rin wasn't sure who was speaking. It sounded like Shima but he couldn't focus on the voices thing long enough to differentiate between them.

"I imagine his throat is raw from coughing up all that water." Now that was definitely Yukio.

Rin tried to sit up so he could get a better look around where he was, but with every single movement his body screamed out in pain and stopped him in his tracks. Rin stayed where he was on the floor. No longer cut off from air, he took in as many shallow breathes as he could. Air was so underrated.

"What hurts?" Bon asked.

"'verything." Was Rin's croaky reply.

Shima was hovering over him now, "Do you want some help sitting up?"

Rin nodded. Shima and Bon grabbed him under his arms and slowly helped him into a sitting position. Rin gritted and bared his teeth to stop himself from crying out in pain. They gently propped him up against the bathroom wall.

Rin looked around for Yukio, but he was no where in sight. He could have sworn that he heard Yukio talking just moments before.

"Where's Yukio?" Rin asked quietly. He wasn't as croaky as before, but his throat and chest still hurt like hell.

"Once he knew you were okay, he left to get some fresh air." Bon explained, shaking his head.

"I've never seen him so scared before. When we pulled you out of the tub, I thought you were... I was so scared that you- that you had-" Shima stopped, he couldn't finish his sentence.

Rin didn't need Shima to finish his sentence, he knew what the pink-haired boy was trying to stay. If any reasonable person walked into a bathroom and found a person submerged underwater in a bathtub and unresponsive, it would probably be safe to assume that they had drowned, or died somehow.

Rin glanced around the flooded bathroom. They were sitting in two or three inches of hot bath water. The bath water was so hot and steamy that the humidity made Rin felt like he was going to start choking again. His clothes clung to his skin, soaking wet. Water dripped from his dark hair on to his face.

"So, uh," Rin started, breaking the silence, "We should probably clean this up. Any ideas on how we should go about this?"

Bon gawked at him, "Are we not going to talk about how you just tried to drown yourself?"

"Nope. Don't wanna."

"You just want us to help you mop up this water and pretend nothing happened?" Bon asked slowly, trying to wrap his head around what Rin was saying.

"Unless you have a better idea." Rin quipped, "Someone want to go grab some towels?"

"You could barely move just two seconds ago, shouldn't you just rest?" Shima chimed in.

"I feel fine." That was a lie. Rin felt like absolute garbage, but he would rather feel the burning, stinging pains in his chest and lungs and face the consequences of his actions.

Rin stood up and looked for towels. He caused this mess, he flooded the bathroom and now his friends had to clean up after him again. Rin couldn't tell if it was hot bath water dripping down his face, or if he was crying. He reached out to open another drawer in his search for towels, but a hand gripped his arm and stopped him.

"Why don't you go put on some dry clothes?" Shima suggested in a firm voice, "You could get sick." Shima wasn't sure if that was true. Maybe Rins incredible healing would stop him from catching pneumonia or a cold, but Rin needed to rest. He needed to get better.

Rin nodded his agreement and trekked out of the bathroom, soggy cloths and all. He walked past a window and saw that a light starting to appear on the horizon. The sun was starting to rise. How much time had passed? How long was he in that bathtub for? It was enough time for the bath to overflow and fill the entirety of the bathroom.

With Rin out of the room Bon asked Shima in a low voice, "You and Yukio have both tried talking to him. Now let me try."

Bon took a few minutes to clean up some of the water before calling out, "Oi, Rin! Shima needs a break. Can you come in here and help me finish cleaning up?"

"Sure." Rin called back from the other room.

Rin came back into the room quietly and Shima took the opportunity to excuse himself, "I'm going to go find Yukio. You guys good?"

"Yeah." Rin replied.

Using a mop to clean up the small amount of remaining water, Bon watched Rin out of the corner of his eye. He had an idea of how he could go about talking to Rin, but he was didn't know if it was the best way to do things.

Rin leaned against the wall and fiddled with his fingers, waiting for instructions on how to help clean.

Bon took a long, deep breath. It was now or never.

"I think it's safe to say that you have a death wish," Bon started in a casual conversation tone, "May I ask why?"

Rin shook his head. "You couldn't understand."

"Couldn't?"

"Wouldn't."

"Then make me understand. Talk to me, Rin."

"I didn't want to die..." Rin trailed off, his voice serious.

"But?" Bon prompted.

"If I were to die," Rin responded, "all of my problems would disappear."

"If you were to die, then who would be left to pick up the pieces you leave behind? Yukio?"

"Yukio can take care of himself. I know he can."

"Well that's not exactly fair."

"It's not about what's fair!" Rin suddenly shouted, tears of frustration and anger falling down his face.

Bon set down his mop and turned to face Rin, giving him his full and undivided attention.

"It's about what I deserve! I don't deserve happiness, I am the son of Satan, the literal devil. What exactly about that warrants the right to a happy life?" Rin demanded.

"You don't seriously think we hate you because of who your father is, do you?"

"What do you mean?" Rin asked, using his sleeve to wipe tears from his face.

"We can't control who our parents are, trust me. I know." Bon said, thinking about his own father. "I was just upset that you didn't trust us enough to tell us. You've had to carry this burden alone this whole time. Who our parents are doesn't define us. If you were to die now, what are you leaving behind except pain and sorrow?"

Bon grabbed Rin by the shoulders, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the pain I've caused you. I can't undo what I did, I would if I could. But I swear to you now, for as long as you live, I will stand by you. All that I ask in return is that you let us in, try let us help you." Bon pleaded, his voice cracking.

Rin thought for a moment before saying, "I'll try."

-~x~-

Shima wandered around the not-so-abandoned dormitory. The layout was similar to the one that he was staying at, with so it wasn't too hard to find his way around. He wasn't one hundred percent sure where he was going to find Yukio. Shima had already checked the woman's bathroom, a few of the spare bedrooms, and the kitchen with no luck.

He eventually made his way to the roof of the building and finally found what he was looking for.

Yukio was resting his head on the railing that lined the edge of the building. He was gazing out at the quickly rising sun on the horizon. It had been a long morning for all of them, but Shima couldn't even begin to imagine what Yukio was going through. Seeing your brother lifeless on the floor sounded like a mildly traumatic experience.

"I had a feeling I might find you up here," Shima said, "Rin likes to come here too."

"Sorry, I just needed some fresh air." Yukio said, his voice full of exhaustion. "How did you know that Rin likes to come up here?"

"Pfft, it's not like my job to follow you and Rin or anything, but it's pretty hard to miss him when he's up here playing with that giant demon cat thing of his."

"Kuro?" Yukio asked, exasperated. Once upon a time, he had asked Rin to keep his little feline companion inside the dormitory so that normal bystanders didn't see a giant demon cat running amok, but that was the least of his worries right now.

"Yeah, that thing. How are you holding up, teach?" Shima asked.

"We're outside of the classroom, please call me Yukio." It was expected that his students call him teacher or sir while in class or a professional setting, but outside of the classroom Yukio like being treated as an equal. "Honestly? I'm not. I just can't stop thinking about how this is all my fault. If only I had been by his side when he needed me most. I'm really a shitty brother, aren't I?"

"I mean, you did shoot him once."

Yukio turned to face Shima with a horrified expression.

"I was joking, just joking. I have brothers too you know. If I was in Rin's place, I wouldn't fault you. We all make mistakes sometimes. All that we can do is learn from them and try to do better the next time."

Yukio wiped the exhaustion from his eyes with the palms of his hands and gave Shima a sidelong glance. "When did you become philosophical?"

"I like to think that I'm smarter than I look." Shima said, gesturing his pink hair. "Are you ready to go back inside? Bon said he was going to talk to Rin. We should probably make sure they haven't killed each other yet."

Yukio nodded in agreement, "You're right."