liar liar (skies on fire)

After the.. incident, you decide to stay awake instead of sleeping. 

You'll just have that dream again.

Why?

_

You find your way to the cafeteria at three in the morning, scrolling on the shitty flip phone Samuel gave you. It's an obnoxious shade of pink that practically lights up the room all on its own and it doesn't really have the storage for many games, so your stuck playing snake for a couple of hours. After you get bored of that, you decide to pick up a quick read, like Dante's Inferno. It's hilarious because of how terribly incorrect it is. It's also Dante being a Mary Sue and fangirling over his hero. Which is funny. This becomes funnier when you remember how embarrassed Dante was when he found out how much people treasured his works. You sit there, reading and laughing.

Until the day actually starts and you snatch a string of grapes from the kitchen and head to class.

Your teacher is an expert Aria, she's also as obnoxious as your phone. 

"Most demons can be exorcised and destroyed by reciting fatal verses." The teacher drones. "These passages contains words or phrases that cause their death." Her voice is high and shrill and grates on your ears. "In battle, Aria's can recall and recite these verses and use them against demons." She opens her book. "Now, what brave soul may I call on to recite the passage I assigned for homework?" 

You raise your hand, because she's the kind of teacher to pick on students who aren't paying attention to embarrass them. Zirka nuzzles into your head, you watch as her attention shifts away from your hand. You're correct. She calls on Izumo, and you don't look at her, despite her being exactly one chair ahead of you. 

"Oh— I'm sorry."

"The tadeyum dear, from were we left off please."

"Right!" She takes a breath, you wonder if she's counting, like you do. "Day by day we magnify thee and worship thy name. Thy name and ever were. Ever were."

"What's wrong dear?" The teacher asks, as if she hadn't picked the one student completely out of it.

"I.. don't remember." 

"Oh— my, Kamiki-san, this isn't like you at all." She turns and stares at you but her eyes gloss over. There's some bad omen about looking death in the face, you're sure. "How about you Suguru-san?"

He nods and stands up, confidence swells around him like a note gone sour. "Day by day we magnify thee and worship they name and ever were. Every day without end, oh safe of lord. We bless this day with our kin, oh lord have mercy on us, mercy upon us. Oh lord let mercy enlighten upon us as our truth is in thee oh lord, in thee I have trusted; let me never be confounded." 

You watched as this verse was spun, it's a telltale, a daw of angels blood, the stuff spilling from these veins you crafted yourself, a sword that can make it's blacksmith bleed.  It's almost an art to watch it pointed this way, with a sharp cut. You clap with Rin and Moriyama. 

"Wow, you're so smart!" Moriyama decides. 

"Careful now, don't start falling for me." Suguru says pridefully. 

"I can't believe it, you really are smart dude!" Rin rewords Moriyama, in complete and utter surprise that the boy who has him beat in every class, who is training to be an Aria, has memorized fatal verse passages. How pitiful.

"Hah?" Suguru-kun says, loudly, you look at him bored. "What's that s'possed to mean?"

"Truth is," Konekomeru starts. "Bon isn't really smart he's just really good at memorizing."

"So in other words," Suguru-kun says with a smile that's more like a baring of teeth. "I am smart, isn't that right Konekomeru?" 

"Gaahh— yes!" He shakes his hands in front of his face. It's a manner of appeasement.

"Whatever," Izumo decides. "anyone can memorize."

"Yeah, you wanna repeat that? It's big talk coming from someone who can't memorize four sentences."

She gets defensive, saying some bullshit about how defenseless Aria's are, and you cut in, "Just 'cuz your pissy your friend left doesn't mean it's our fault. Get over it, kid."

She ignores you, because of course she does. She picks up her shovel and goes about her natural talent. Digging her grave deeper and deeper.

"You have some nerve— dissing Aria's when you know I wanna be one, shitting on other people's dreams." They get up completely now. He marches, something liquid, something heat spilling from his mouth. You wonder if it burns when he talks, too. "Hell, the first day'a class I knew you sucked!"

He slams his hand into Rin's desk and you snicker at his flinch. 

"Dreams?" She asks, poisonously. "Oh, you mean that thing about defeating Satan." (His name is, once again, the tackiest bullshit you've ever heard, you run it over in your head, Satan, Opposer. It's so stupid you could cry. ) She spits out a giggle like it could burn, like her spits turned to acid. "I don't know about you, but when I hear a joke like that, I laugh."

"How about you, haah? Let's have it. Why do you wanna be an exorcist?" There's a second pause, his whole face scrunches up. "Well?"

She pauses, there's a flash, you smell fire. She scoffs it away, but the smoke stays when she does. It's always there, memories of death. "I don't go around telling people why I do what I do— I'm not out to get attention like you."

He tries to pick her up, she tries to slap him back, but she somehow misses despite him being right there, hitting Rin in the process. You snicker again.

"If you're gonna fight, do it outside!"

"So!" Yukio steps into the classroom, stepping in after everything has already escalated. "Settle down." There's a glint on his glasses where teh light catches. "Enough with the fighting already."

__

The punishment is sitting on your knees with a barrion shoves on top. You don't really feel anything, used to the crushing weight of constant deadlines when you were actively Death, End of All, the Fourth Horseman, Fallen Angel of the Night, Phantom Guider. You just sit back and contemplate leaving Japan and ending your little world tour. 

"The hells up with these.. the more it sits on me, the heavier it gets."

(There's a presence here that's creeping you out, like somebody is watching. You shift your eyes to the floor, where a floorboard is loose. Mice, maybe.)

"Astute observation." You mutter. The kid in the hoodie, the-one-whose-name-is-totally-Tamaki, snorts and tries to cover it up with a cough.

"You don't know what a barrion is?" Suguru, the human, decides to shove his feeling on the one person it shouldn't land on. "Damn, you're pathetic. Both your brothers are better than you, one is literally a teacher and from what I hear Tsubaki's on his way to becoming valedictorian."

That catches you by surprise, Rin too because he looks at you, you give him no response other than a shrug. You were so ahead of the material it never really registered that you were ahead of everyone in your grade.

"Yeah, well, it's your fault we're here!"

"It's everyone's fault."

Excuse him, you tried to de-escalate the situation but Shrine Maiden Kamaki and Temple Boy Suguru wanted to diss out who has the most trauma. They're both stupid. 

"One of the goals of this bootcamp is to strengthen academic skills. The other is to get you to start becoming closer as a team."

It's a somber mood, for about half a second, until Izumo decides to listen to her own voice again. "Like I'd ever be friends with these losers."

You close your eyes. You could go for a nap right around now. You don't, of course, because the lights go out the second Yukio leaves. You groan, irritated. 

"Is it a blackout?" Rin asks. You roll your eyes and huff out a breath. 

"No way, I can see lights on outside." Shima says, he doesn't flinch, getting up and walking slowly toward the door.

"You mean our building's the only one without power?" Rin asks, because he's incapable of making his own deductions.

(You feel the eyes shift. You think to yourself, again, mice, maybe. 

See, the problem with you is that you can't really tell apart life forms, it could very well be a mouse in the dorm, or Ukubok stumbling around somewhere, or something the problem is that you can only know the specifics of things when they are on your doorstep.

When they already reek of rotten meat and fruit. Watermelon rinds cracked open are the only way to tell how sweet the fruit is, after all.)

"I'm going outside." Shima says, tracing his hand over the closet door. It's at this point you realize everyone ditched their Barrion and so you push yours off. You don't go near the loose floorboard. 

"Shima, be careful!" Konekomeru shouts, not moving.

"I love stuff like this," he says with a laugh. "it's like a real life test of courage." He steps up to the door, you smell it really, before anything else. "There's nothing here, see?" Like sulfur and menthol. Shima opens the door. "My eyes must be playing trick on me." He shuts it immediately, his hands are shaking softly. "Either that or we got a de—" His voice cuts into a scream and he runs to hide behind Rin when the Ghoul Hand rips through the door.

"Not again." Rin says, exhausted.

The thing from yesterday steps in, uneven and stumbling. 

"The ghouls came back!" There's something like fear spilling from Izumo, you can smell the potency because it's coming from around everyone— except totally-Tamaki and the boy with a puppet that hasn't introduced himself yet. You watch them, in the corners of your eye.

"Wh-what about the demon warning charm?" Konekomeru stammers. 

(There's a shift in the walls, something breathing. It's infuriating, the not knowing. It always has been.)

Then the demons second head spits open, blooming like a rotten flower. Spilling something spoilt and sickening on your clean clothes. 

"Mii? I need Unauna-san!" 

Mii, the baby Greenlin shouts out chatter and a tree sprouts from his stomach. Thick branches piercing through the ghoul's center— that's when it splits. A horrible crackle and slump fills the air, a detriment to the atmosphere. It's sour and pungent and breaking through the one-tree forest. 

"It's tryin' to break outa there—" Shima says, panicked.

"Damn, for a dead thing it's pretty lively isn't it?"

"It's not dead." You murmur. "Not yet anyway, it's like when a heart  gives out but the body still functions. Someone's puppeting a coma patient, it's not in control." You try to sniff it out, but it's in two different places at once. You hear it, the split.

That's when everyone starts coughing, Moriyama goes down first; you look at Rin— he's a demon kin so he wouldn't get sick. Totally-Tamaki isn't coughing and neither is puppet-boy. You decide you'll be one of the non-coughing ones, it'd support Rin's not coughing.

"Once Moriyama loses her strength the barricade she put up'll collapse."

"Hell're you doing?"

"I'm gonna go outside and try to draw it away." He grins, wide and stupid. "It'll give you guys an chance to get the hell outa here."

"You lost your mind?" Suguru shouts. 

"Hey, you don't gotta worry about me, I'm pretty strong you know!" 

"Idiot." You murmur. "I'm coming with you dumbass!" 

"Stay back, Kiku." He says, serious. "I can do it on my own."

You nod. He runs. You hope this dumbass turns on the lights. Even if he doesn't you're sure he's got hellfire and that shit burns bright. Not like your flames do, black, like cinder.

The second half stays— crushing through the branches. 

"Can't just sit around and do nothing—" Suguru says. "I'm going to recite a passage."

"You don't even know that things fatal verse."

"It's a ghoul— so it's gotta be in the Gospel of John, I've got the whole thing memorized."

"It's in the second half, somewhere." You say. He turns to you, you grin wolfishly. "All the fatal verses in the first half are for middle-class resurrects and animal-class. From the top. I got the first fifteen chapters word for word."

"It isn't much, but I have one through ten memorized. It could weaken the ghoul."

"Thanks Konekomeru." Suguru says. 

"Hey, I don't have anything memorized, but," he pulls out a staff. "if push comes to shove, I'll back you up."

"Are you guys crazy!?"  Izumo shouts.

"Weren't you the one actin' all tough before?"

"Konekomeru, start at one, Tsubaki start at eleven and I'll start at sixteen. Careful not to get thrown off by each other."

You all nod and sit in prayer on the ground, you take out your knife-shaped-like-a-cross necklace and hold it steady. "Here we go!"

"Now a certain man was sick—" you start in Latin. They turn to you but ultimately ignore it. Everyone stands tense (not you, the worst it could do was pat you, if you bled on it it would dissolve, angel blood on demon skin doesn't mix will), Shima prods at the ghoul in a vain attempt to hold it back, you close your eyes. Your tongue burn.

You finish your verse and wipe the ink from your mouth. You forgot. 

Those who have fallen are not privy to these words. You did that, there's no hypocrisy with you. 

The demon breaks through the barrier when Moriyama falls. Izumo summons her familiars to distract it, but they fail miserably after Shima tried to fight it off with his staff, it didn't work and he was pushed to the side. The demon picks up Suguru by the hair and hold him as he finishes the final verse. 

His eyes are closed as the lights go on. He completes the book. The chapter. The phrase.

The ghoul vanishes into smoke and ash. 

Suguru falls. 

"Am I dead?" He says.

"Nah." You say, confidently.

This, of course, is when Rin pops his cocky little head in. "Ne, what happened to your ghoul?" He looks at how roughed up you all are. "You defeated it? Sick!"

"The hell?" 

You don't really pay attention to what he's saying and kind of collapse in on yourself in a weary way. Shima sits next to you. "Hey, Tsubaki, you good?"

You smile awkwardly. "Shit, I feel like I've aged a millennium from this." You look at where Suguru is trying to curb stomp Rin. "I think you should.. stop.. him." 

This, of course, is when Yukio decides that, fuck all, he's coming in. 

You shoot him the middle finger and grin. 

"What?" He asks.

"Fuck you four eyes, the hell've you been." 

"I—"

You stare at the professor next to him. He smells like sulfur, blood, and menthol. "You, instructor, why the hell did you send those ghouls after us?"

He turns his glare from Rin to you in surprise. You smile, you make your teeth a tad too sharp and his eyes widen. Zirka pecks him on the head, hard, and she comes back to you with a piece of hair. You make eye contact while you pocket it subtly. 

(You can't actually do anything with it, but humans are stupid and find it threatening. He gulps, you want to giggle but it'd ruin the whole I'm something beyond your comprehension shtick that you want to play.)

This is when your beloved nephew Samuel, Mephistopheles, Keeper of the Clock, Time Capsule, Star Killer, Supernova, comes in. Dramatic and also kicking Rin in the face. Which you burst out into peels of laugher at, breaking eye contact with the professor to point at Rin. 

"Hallo my young Pages! Thanks for all your hard work!" He tells the people hiding in the walls to tend to the wounded. "Congratulations, you just completed your exwire exams!"

You watch as t hey all come out of their hiding places and you come to the realization that you felt like you were being watched because you were. You also realize that there was in fact a human under the floorboards.

__

"Man," Rin grumbles in the infirmary, sitting on Moriyama's bed. "that was the worst pop-quiz ever."

"Yeah, wish I coulda known to prepare myself, you know?" Shima says. His voice is scratchy.

"Oh no— do you think I passed?" Konekomeru holds his glasses by the ends, anxiously fiddling with them.

"Don't stress yourself," Suguru says. "no use worrying about it now."

"You and Shima and Tsubaki actually did something. I just—"

"Wasn't the whole point to work together?" You ask. "That's what Yukio said before the exam, right?"

"Yeah."  Izumo said. "And if that's the point, I definitely failed."

"Don't be so self-centered," you point out, "Tamaki and, uh, what's his face didn't do anything at all."

She looks at you confusedly. "I guess you're right."

"Cute, I'm going to sleep, bye losers." You say, stretching. You crawl into the empty bed and wait to knock the fuck out. You laugh for a second, "Take that big brother, fucked your demon up real good."

"What'd he say?" 

"I don't.."

The world twists. 

__

It's not so much a dream as it is a memory, an instance. Then another. These things reoccurring over and over, you plan the way history will repeat itself.

Rage spills from your stomach out, unto the earth your father so beloved. You soaked hate into them, into the corpses, sickening the healthy children and killing the weak ones. The healthy then becoming weak. Killing the weak ones. 

There is a boy there, among it all, forest green and holding his pet hobgoblin. 

You stare at him, fingers dyed black as the darkest ink. Eyes spilling red. 

He looked at you, head tilted. 

Hello. He says.

Hello, one of the forest. You say in return.

Oh, yes, I forgot. He takes out a hard candy from his pocket and offers one to you. I'll give it to you if you answer one question.

Only if I can ask you one back.

Okay, he says, and hands it over to you. Do you bleed blue, mister? Father says that kin like us bleed blue, do you.

No. You say, in return. You plop the candy in your mouth. You look up at the stars. They're sat so still, like they were all put perfectly. Your mouth runs dry. Why are you here?

He grins, something sharp. Big brother said the human world is fun, I don't understand. It seams so boring.

Oh, I'm sorry. You say. You should come back when I'm not angry anymore.

He looks at you. When will that be?

You already asked your question. You say. You look away. You vanish.