The 9th

Late Arrival

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS! TODAY WE HAVE KAMIKI, OUR BEST TAMER IN TRUE CROSS HISTORY!" Kamiki rolled her eyes at the large sound coming from the people around her, which made the cheering grow even louder. She stood staring down the ramp and at the back of the ring where Rin's cage was slowly entering. She dropped her whip when she saw the state of his back.

It was red and blue and purple. It had scars and open wounds. It had blood dripping and dried. The wounds leaked down into his camo pants and onto his arms. The crowd silenced in shock, why did their champion look like that? Rin slowly got up off of his hands and knees to stand but stumbled and landed on the bars. He hissed in pain as the metal collided harshly with his back. His tail left his pants and the air burned the open scars. The crowd grew even quieter, they all knew that the tail was a demon's weakest spot. To hurt it so harshly... Rin regained his footing and spat a wad of blood onto the ground. He stood tall and everybody caught a glimpse of the angry red whips marks that were on his chest, they decorated his abdomen in criss-cross patterns. There was even a disgusting scar by his throat that showed where they played tic-tack-toe.

Rin growled at the eyes that were pointed at him, "What are you looking at-" A ring flew from the box at the top and wrapped itself around his throat, cutting off his sentence. A soft sizzle sounded and smoke rose from his throat. He couldn't even growl.

"Sorry about that," Mephisto said from the box, "he hasn't been properly trained yet. Get along with the announcement, please."

"R-Right! Umm, ladies and gentlemen, our champion! The undefeated Prince Rin!" Her voice couldn't muster the strength to shout, the state of their champion was too unbelievable. "Fight!" For the first time, she thinks she may regret saying those words.

Rin's cage didn't open. The crowd grew confused, it normally did, why was today different? Rin narrowed his eyes and raised a leg to one of the bars, ignoring the protest of aches on his back, and kicked one of the bars out. Then he kicked a second one, and finally a third. He stalked out of the cage and stared down at the blessed floor. It was burning his feet, but the pain was nothing to him.

Izumo rushed down the ramp, 'forgetting' her whip at the top. She stood standing in front of Rin, "May the gods grant me this blessing, put the demon I see in my mind under my will." Rin didn't pretend to listen to the orders this time. A large circle developed around him and he was covered in blue light. Izumo looked at him, "Bow." Rin's back forced itself down into a bowing position. "Straighten your back." Rin internally felt relief as the pain on his back lessened. "Jump." Rin jumped, splotches of blood falling to the floor as his feet made contact with it. Rin fought against the tamer's chant as hard as he could, but in his weakened state, the best he could do was free his tail. When he did he was smart enough to keep it limp by his side. "Turn around." Under her breath, Izumo said 'release'. Rin gave her a secret look of confusion and she smiled and, still whispering, said 'I don't want to win'.

He turned around and raised his leg to hit her head, but was blocked by Izumo's leg. The purple-haired girl spun them both around, kept Rin's leg pinned to the ground, and punched him in the chest. Her fist prickled at the feeling of the scars. Rin ignored the pain and went to return the punch. It became a speedy battle of hits and blocks.

"Do you know what they did to me?" Izumo stopped her hits, Rin wasn't able to talk. He shouldn't be able to, she knows the curse that was placed around his neck better than anybody. She glanced at his neck and was overtaken by the urge to hurl. His throat was covered in blood. She looked at the spot he spat to last, a chunk of flesh sat in the puddle of blood. He had torn his vocal cords that were cursed out. Rin took her moment of distraction and grabbed both of her hands, he leaned in to get close to her face and the crowd leaned in their seats to hear what he would say. "They were harsher than hell." Izumo yanked her hands up to get away and brought Rin's hand up in the process, his nails scratched her face.

Rin released Izumo's hands and ran forward to catch her. His nails were coated in poison, it was in a Prince's blood. Rin raised a hand and held it over her face, "Turn retro diebus." The screen zoomed in on Izumo's face, catching the poison leaving her blood and returning to Rin's fingertips. He set the exorcist on the ground and walked back to his cage.

"It looks like Prince Rin is the win-"

A large boom cut her off. A hole on the northern wall kept growing and growing until the thing making it stepped through it.

Rin gazed at the figure, "Astaroth?"

The horned man nodded his head and jumped into the arena, destroying the wires that trapped Rin in the circle, "C'mon!" Astaroth grabbed Rin's hand and jumped through the hole. Rin had trouble keeping up, his legs wanted to give up. They ran. Blessed Dogs kept on their trail as they exited the building and exorcists tried to stop them. They ran until they reach the cemetery Astaroth had first found Rin in. When they stopped Rin collapsed onto the ground. "Rin?!" Astaroth finally got to look at his brother. The more he looked the angrier he got.

How could pathetic humans treat a prince of Gehenna this way? How dare they think about touching them when Mephisto could stop them? He gritted his teeth and spat one of them out. "Let's get you to a healer," he said, picking Rin up again. Astaroth bit into his hand to summon a portal and tried to walk through it. His foot managed to get halfway through before both of them were thrown back. "What?"

Rin groaned in pain as he pulled a stick out of his back. Astaroth tried to go through the portal again, he was surprised to see that he didn't have any difficulties. Shrugging his shoulders, he picked Rin back up and crossed, but was thrown back again.

"The same thing happened at the monastery, seems like I can't leave."

Astaroth growled and kicked the dirt, "Stupid humans!" He felt Rin pat him on the back and ushered his younger brother to sit back down, "You shouldn't be standing! Look how badly you're hurt."

Rin wanted to laugh, but instead took a sharp intake of breath as he heard the barking sounds of dogs. He grabbed Astaroth's hand and picked himself up, "It's not important right now, we have to leave."

But where would they go? They would have guards outside of the monastery, and that's the only place Rin knew about to be demon-friendly.

Astaroth startled Rin out of his thoughts when he moved to stand in front of Rin. Rin squinted his eyes at his older brother before he saw the van that was approaching them.

The van stopped and the windows rolled down. Izumo popped her head out of the window, "Hurry up! They'll be here soon, get in!" The side of the van opened up.

Astaroth was hesitant to get in the van, but when he heard the dogs getting louder and saw his brother's weak state he quickly got over his doubts. "If you're tricking us," Astaroth said as he loaded Rin into the van, "all of Gehenna will be on your tail."

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This, like chapter XXXVI (?) feels off. I will have to come back and fix it.

Have a good day!