AN: This chapter is from Yukio's 1st person POV.
I took the test again today. Just like every day.
I ran again today. Just like every day.
I ate the food Rin made me again today. Just like every day.
Everything was the same as every day today. Except one very important thing. My results were different.
It was a tiny blip that was the size of a mountain to me. A tiny blip of the transcript of my test that made my heart stop.
All it took was the tiny blip on my results to decide I had Satan's fire. A tiny blip of the chemical results of the flames in my cells. All of them, at the same time, had begun and finished.
I wasn't awake yet. But flames were there. Waiting to be ignited.
Today, I began the second stage of paranoia. Yesterday, my paranoia had rested in everything about Rin and his safety. And my tests. Today, my paranoia was about myself for once. I didn't know anything about my own flames. I knew I had more power than Rin did, or at least I had honed all that was available to humans. He had more raw, untapped power. Even in his training he was still unleashing too much or not enough. If I tried, I could control myself. But I was scared. I could lose control, and I would hurt more people than my kindhearted big brother could. Even possessed by his flames.
I opted out of teaching today, told Rin I was sick, and instructed that I be left alone until curfew. I sat on my bed, holding in all the emotion I wanted to release. Everyone who came near me would be as good as dead. My students, my coworkers, my own brother who I promised - I promised with all my soul - to protect. Now that promise was tainted with my inability to ensure I wouldn't be the threat to my brother that I was meant to stop myself.
I finally let Rin in, faked a small cough to convince him I was sick, and climbed into bed. I didn't have an appetite. I sat there, eyes unable to see without my glasses, and stared at the open space above me.
When I was sure Rin was asleep, I closed my eyes and tears streamed down the side of my head until the comfort of the bed and the exhaustion of emotion didn't let me stay awake.
And now today is tomorrow, but tomorrow is today. Every day would be terrible. Worse than before, where it'd already been torturous.
I went back to teaching my class, and made sure none of them saw me shudder. I remembered how they'd all cringed when they'd found out their good friend Rin Okumura was son of Satan and held the blue flames. On top of that, their teacher? How would they put up with those who were related to someone who had caused them pain longer? I didn't expect them to.
No one noticed my hand trembling as I held up my gun for target practice. They were faux billets for Rin to practice with while the rest of the class studied, and he was supposed to hit as many of them with Kurikara as he could manage. When he unsheathed it, I flinched. At this point, I nearly believed that I would burst into flames along with him. I didn't, thank God.
I shot at him, twelve times in ten seconds precisely for two minutes. He didn't miss a single target. This was the result of all his training, all the time he'd spent honing his speed, his strength, and his focus with his flames.
He would tell it to me as often as possible. "Nii-san, look how much better I've gotten after the candle stuff. Bet I'll be paladin yet."
Yeah. If I'm there to see it, I'll be the proudest twin brother there is.
I wondered what it would be like to have to train my flames without a sheathe, without a private Gehenna Gate to summon them through. Rin found it hard enough like it already was, and I would have no way to curb myself if I started losing myself to Gehenna. It was almost as if I were the one destined for Satan's arms, and Rin was just a decoy.
What a joke I was.
I wondered what it would be like if I unleashed my flames and my ears and teeth became like Rin's. All of my colleagues would look down to me, fear me, or both. I doubt my students would be able to look me in the eye or raise a hand. Or respect me. And rightly so.
My entire life started revolving around detachment again. I couldn't get emotionally involved in anything, lest my flames would show themselves when I wasn't ready. I wasn't sure when I'd be ready, but it certainly wasn't now.
I don't know if Rin suspected anything. Certainly he didn't say anything. But Shura did. She said to me, "Four eyes, you need to get out of your head sometimes." She didn't know for sure, I don't think. She would've been a lot more forward about it if she did.
It was four full, long months later until I was on a solo mission, just some doctor work on the outskirts of the city. Nothing too bad. But I found a demon, one that preyed on subconscious fear. That was a bad choice for me to fight.
I fought for a little over 20 minutes before the drugs wafting off of it were dulling my senses and alerting my mind. "You can't control it," it sounded like my head was saying, "Why don't you just let it out before it breaks out on its own?"
I beat it back, trying to continue to eliminate the beast. It wasn't working.
I blacked out.
