Paralyzed

Chapter 11

After the encounter with Alistair, the cram students went with the other exorcists to investigate the underpass in the daytime, all but Rin, who was stuck under the covers in bed. He had been there all night, unable to sleep or do anything. He was much too upset with himself to crawl out of bed and go with them. Yukio understood why, so he didn’t push Rin, but he did worry about him. 

They entered the underpass to see it looked different during the day. The fence was covered in some kind of blue tarp, preventing the locals from looking in. Shura spotted the cracked flashlight on the ground and immediately walked over to it, gripping it in her hand. She looked up to see where the demons were. Shocked that there was no blood, the kyoto trio walked up to it and examined the spot. 

“This is where that bastard was, right?” Suguro asked. 

“It is.” Yukio answered. 

“Well then… where's the blood we saw last night?” Koneko asked, scratching at his arm uncomfortably. 

“Isn’t it obvious? They covered their tracks. We aren’t dealing with some low tier demon. This is one of the big boys. They know how to do their jobs.” Shura explained, putting her hands on her hips, looking around the underpass hoping to find things she missed, but it was literally picked cleaned. Shura sighed. “Well this was a waste of time. Everyone make your way back to the hotel. We will talk about our next course of action to exorcist this bastard.” Shura explained, making her way out of the alley way, but Suguro couldn’t shake a bad feeling he had, but kept quiet as he walked with the rest of the cram students back to the hotel.

After about nearly a full day of being bedridden, Rin groaned, knowing he needed to face the world. Throwing off the blanket, he grabbed fistfuls of his sweats and helped himself to swing his legs to the side of the bed. Once he was sitting, he moved the Catheter tube away from the arm rest, before slowly and gently, lifting himself from the bed to the chair, only hurting his back when it slammed back roughly. He groaned, looking over at the door before blowing an exhausted breath. He wheeled over to door before opening it, looking down the hall to see the Kyoto group sluggishly walking towards him, most likely going to their rooms. 

Rin felt panic rise in his stomach as he tried to wheel back to the room, but realized the door behind him had closed. Rin cursed under his breath as he looked down the hall to lock eyes with Suguro who looked a little shocked at Rin’s appearance. His hair was a complete mess, greasy and sticking up, the bags under his eyes were dark against his pale skin. The kyoto group stopped their advances, as Rin stared like a deer in the headlights. 

Rin cleared his throat, before tearing his eyes down to his legs, before turning his wheelchair around and wheeling away from them as fast as he could. He heard his name being said but Rin really wasn’t in the mood to talk. Suguro on the other hand wasn’t having it. 

“Rin, stop rolling away, we need to talk to you.” Suguro snapped. 

Rin didn’t stop. He doesn’t know why he felt so scared of turning to them, but he had a feeling it was because of what happened last night. He was caught in a moment of weakness and he didn’t want to look at any of the cram students after what happened. 

Rin felt something tug at his wheelchair, causing a strangled gasp to escape him as he turned his head around to see who had stopped him. Suguro. Of course, though when Rin had turned to meet eyes with them, Suguro looked concerned. His eyes showed real fear in them and that made them flinch. 

“What is it?” Rin demanded, flipping from his current state to one of pure anger. He looked ready to hit Suguro, not realizing how angry he looked. 

Suguro lifted his hands up as if to show he wasn’t a threat. “Calm down man, I just came to tell you that Yukio wanted us to to explain what we discovered.”