Fly Away

Chapter 22: My sad attempt at feels.

"He's got nowhere else to go in Kyoto. He'll come back when he cools down." Toshi stood up and walked away. Frigid bastard. Rin clenched her jaw, got up and followed him out. She would not interfere with the conversation Souji and Kondo-san needed to have, but she was not entirely sure if Toshi understood what he'd asked Souji to do.

She followed the vice-commander to his room. The room was neat and orderly, save for the desk covered in books, written reports and financial paperwork.

"Toshi—"

"If you're here to strong-arm me into changing my mind, you're wasting your time."

"Had I been allowed to finish my sentence, you would have learned that I simply want to make sure you know what you're asking Okita to do."

"I'm asking him to follow orders." The muscles in her jaw feathered, and a flinty air seeped into her silver eyes.

"You're asking him to leave. You're asking him to abandon his dreams." A glint of ire flashed in Toshi's face, jaw clenching, eyes narrowing, brows drawn together.

"I don't see how sending him away is forcing him to abandon any dream he may have." Rin roughly grabbed the vice-commander's lapel, pulling his face down to level with hers. Swallowing a flinch of pain, she snarled:

"I don't know where you've been for the last thirteen years, but even I, who was never around very long, noticed that the only thing Souji's ever wanted to do with his life is repay Kondo-san. To. Help. Him." In that instant, Hijikata Toshizo would have sworn on his life that the girl's eyes had glinted gold, filled with wrath and ruin. A demon's eyes.

Rin stumbled back, biting down on the alien, overwhelming power that flooded her mind and body. This had twice before and she hated it. She would feel her control slip, anger battering her defences, thrumming in her veins then, clarity. Her mind would go quiet and she would slip into a state of killing calm. Her dark hair would turn white, her eyes gold, small horns jutting from her hairline, vicious claws.

Toshi's watched her in cautious confusion, the slightest bit of concern peeping through. Snatching a look at her shoulder, he realized, with no small degree of relief, that she hadn't torn it open. Quietly, he said:

"You must understand my point of view, though?" A wry smile.

"Of course I do. He wants to kill. However, we need all the help we can get, don't we?" The ghost of a smile graced Toshi's lips.

"That IS depressingly true." With those words, she crawled over and curled herself against him, hiding her face in his side. The same way she had that night, all those years ago when he'd found her, frozen on the banks of an unforgiving torrent. The Demon vice-commander tightened his arms around the girl with an iron will and a glass soul.

"Don't tear my family apart."

They were a family. All of them.

And always would be.

Kondo, Rin, Souji, Toshi.

The pillars on which the Shieikan had rested.

Pillars that now held up the dreams of so many more.