the stars call you a beauty but they lie

It's late at night when you hear the whining, like the fizzles of something fading out, you can smell the rot hanging in the air. You should make some tea to clear it. You fumble out of the room Yukio showed you, no blanket given but you run on whatever tempature you want to, a body you want to. You'd shift but you've made your peace with the cold, it's nothing more than a whisper.

You head out of your room, careful to avoid the creating steps, wish-washing away into nothing.

The world is sort of blurring right now.

It's the witching hour and then relms forego their piercing viel in these hours. You make friends with the night and call it poetry. Do you want to dance?

You ask, softly, slowly. She whispers back, a laugh in the wind. Silly End, for this shall be over as well.

You think you oughta have hands like a dying breed, something your father ate only to spit back out in disgust, you－tiptoe. Your feet don't touch the ground so the floorboards don't creek, like your bones. You're old and you ache deeply. It's almost funny, the way you can watch this from afar.

Obsessed girls and territorial demons would never mix well, you suppose.

Your nephews, small and powerless as they are can only watch. The lights flicker above you, and nobody seems to notice, but you think it might be impolite. You kindly ask it to stop and it does.

(The things in the wall giggle, you can hear them laugh.)

You wonder, keenly, lovingly, if that will become yours. It will. It has to. That was your price, you know, when you fell from grace like that. You ate rotten fruit and spoilt grain and you peeled open your brothers children because you wanted to see what kind of hunger they had. It was nothing like yours. It was the same as yours. The other side of a hundred-yen coin. A penny. A shekel.

Theres a howl from the kitchen, where Rin and Yukio are standing. You smell it, really, before you see it. Something like ozone and almonds.

You say, softly, after Rin tries and fails, "Why?"

And the demon turns to you.

"Why are you doing this?" You mumble in an old tongue, one you bore in your brothers home. "It won't fix it, they'll be mine anyway, the tickets don't change, you know that."

He chitters, They came in, they took－ they ruined, they－

"It's okay, we can make it again." You say. Because you can. Because they did.

He gurgles and deflates like a lead balloon. You wonder why they were so angry, humans are so fickle.

_

There's this－you wouldn't call it a dream. More like a memory. A vision. You keep remembering a one word conversation. One that never goes well. It happens again and again and again. Always the same. Always different. You say something wrong, because you always do.

It goes:

Why?

And you're pushed off some metaphorical ledge into oblivion, into abandonment, loneliness carved in your back. And your pushed off some physical ledge into oblivion, too.

It goes:

Why?

So they strangle you and rip your wings out, make your skin grey and your teeth fall out bloody.

It goes:

Why?

And he says, It must.

No, it doesn't, you say back, you make your mistakes. He does not forgive you as easy as your first one. There is no star to watch crumble that day, no planets falling. Your brother does not dance with you, awkwardly, until all is well again. Your brother is not here

It goes:

Why?

And the words would feel like sandpaper had sandpaper been invented yet, had the sun been set to orbit.

It goes:

Why?

And you wake up. Shaking. You wonder, every time, why it's that memory. You have so many. You wish you could forget, but all is up to Him, and he slit the skin where you held that cracked star.

Thanks dad.

You decide to take a break here, crack your chest in awkwardly and settle down into bed, staring at the ceiling. You twist yourself until your standing. You should get some water, that's a human thing to do, you recon.

All the movies say that people get up to get water in the middle of the night.

You aren't thirsty, you're just bored.

_

Your father is some infitesimal being, so loud, so quiet, so great and grand and powerful he shadows the shadows and blinds them; made of light as he is. Your father is the face of the universe, the sun infinitely brighter. Something strangling and ashen, a funeral pyre, sea foam at midnight. Summer in the city.

You wonder why he pushed you then, if he just gives you his scraps like he did before.

You don't think too hard on it.

_

There was a time, once.

When you began it was big. Everything was grand, towering over your wings, your eyes, your hands; you wished the world to be enough for you and suddenly ― you, little, small, tragic you, were big enough for the dark. You were made of blue, gold, and white. An offshore wind of something you could not name, something that is you. A stop, you find, an end to all. You, a conclusion paragraph, the end of something maybe not as great as it had the potential to be. You are the end to life, you are death in its newest form.

It's thrilling, for a moment.

Then it all comes crashing down. You do, too.

To fall and fly are so similar, but there's a small error in control over falling and a hold in flying and you hadn't known the difference. When you fell, your wings had pinpricked apart like a bird molt ― waxing off. Dysfunctional. Useless.

(Your father is absolute, you were obsolete ― burning up like those shootings stars you helped make after your brother walked off somewhere.)

This is not that time, here. You are in a classroom.

"Summer vacation is coming up— but before the break you'll be taking this years expire examination event."

"Exwire exam?" Rin hums to himself.

"I want everyone to realize that after the exam you'll be subjected to more specialized tasks and training. It wont be easy," Yukio says calmly. He passed this test before he hit puberty, how hard can it be? "That's why we'll be offering a week long training bootcamp." Yukio hands out the application form and gives out the basics, fill it out. You flip through the the pages and say yes, I am aware, without reading through the papers, you put down your sections. You could always do tamer, but you don't really know what you'd be summoning at all. If you do.

Demons tend to scare easily. From you, that is.

You fill in dragoon and aria and put tamer under the Needs Further Introduction.

Which is your next class, so you'll be able to take it from there.

The professor draws a circle of calk with enter , come hither , do not fear for we seek friend not foe written inside sloppily. Summoning circles got drastically out of hand, but the tongues spoken in Hell aren't really up to speed. There are seven dialects, of course, one for every circle, and the Common, and Formal Common to boot.

"Alright," says the professor with an eyepatch, he reeks of your realm, of something stark and lonely. "you will now summon a demon."

He goes on to explaining Summoning basics, which you had already known, seeing as you use summoning circles in your realm over phone calls because they're easier and also more effective than anything else. "To summon a demon you need a drop of blood," He says.

This might be a problem. You don't bleed red. You don't really bleed at all. Or, well, you could, if you use the right illusion, your sure you could make it look red. That, that idea is what you decide on, wearily.

The professor's blood splatters uneven on the chalk circle. "Son of Aipheios and Akidna, hear my call and show yourself."

Which is— only to you, of course— a fucking hilarious chant. That's like you calling Jamie with child of Allison and Henry, if you hear me come, it's a very depressing call. Which, you suppose, is why it's the Rot Kin that come through. They're dogs on their last legs, mildew set into their eyes. They reek of sulfur and suffering.

He then tells you all to use the baby glyph summons to summon your own demons. You heasitate, after Izumo summons hers and they sit behind her, away from you. You bite the crook of your thumb and warp the color red. You smear it on the glyph and summon, in proper Rakâb. You're sure the king of Rot won't mind if you borrow a pet back, "Fallen stars born from cruelty, come home to me."

Something inky and sickly comes from your glyph, it spurts out, unweighted. A crow with blue, blue eyes and a feather crooked out of it's head. It's beak is white. It's talons are red-stained, like they were dipped in blood. The professor looks at you. His head is still, his eyes are narrow. "What was it you just said?"

"Something my father taught me." You say, in lieu of an actual response.

He looks like he wants more, humans and their greed.

"That's a kin of Raum if I'm not mistaken."

"What's you name?" You ask.

Whatever you deem it to be, one of the end.

"Zirka." You say, star. It means star, these creatures love shiny things. "It's name is Zirka."

The professor nods, absentmindedly, like he's slipping away from you. You place the remaining paper in your pockets, careful not to let your blood be shown. You wonder, coldly, if this even matters more than in theory. You didn't use the pin because it would show when teh professor took it back.

"Uhm," Moriyama says. "I'd like to try it next!"

She spots her blood on the glyph. She looks nervous, like something might go wrong. She's staring at Izumo with the kind of reprieve you see in lonely people. Oh. You get it now. You wonder what she'll do about that. That hollow space in her rib cage, misery loves company, you know. "Come on boy, here boy— or something." She says, hesitantly.

A baby greenlin comes out, floating amiably. It's cute, you have to admit. "Kamiki-kun! I summoned my familiar too!"

Her face scrunches up, "Adorable," she says, as if she's talking to a child. "it's so small and unbelievably cute, like a peanut."

Zirka hums on your shoulder. One of the Earth kin, it says. You nod.

"Aw!" Moriyama says, excited. "You think he's cute?"

"It appears we have our tamer candidates for this class." The professor cuts in. "Being a tamer is an important and useful thing. It's rare and dangerous to control demons in combat."

Fighting, these mortals are quite strange. Zirka rasps in your ear.

You hum in agreement.

"A demon will not listen should it perceive it's master as weak, you must have willpower over it." He adjusts his bandages. You can smell the sweet stench of decay from across the circle. "As I mentioned before, when the circle is broken, the connection too disappears and your familiar will vanish as well. If you ever feel you're in danger, simply tear up the paper." Which is what the professor does, his familiar becomes ash, then smoke.

Sulfur slips into your body before settling in your lungs. You close your eyes so they don't flash silver and black, as holy eyes often do.

The bell rings a cheerful dismissal, as does the teacher a dowry one.

_

You watch Moriyama chase friendship and something cracks inside of you, ink spills into your nose, out of it too. Zirka rests on your head, saying, Last breathe, you are bleeding.

You laugh at the scene and Izumo glares at you, you wipe the black ink from your nose and it smears on your upper lip. Paku looks at you with misplaced pity, you don't need her pity so you smile. It's an ugly thing, your grin stretches awkwardly, inhuman. She turns away, looking down.

She's a pushover, that's why you picked her company to begin with.

Someone easy to let go as they are to latch on.

_

"Good morning, your class has arrived!" Shima says brightly. This is the Okumura dorm. Only they live here, so you suppose it is fairly convenient to place the bootcamp here.

"Seriously.." Suguru says. "This place looks like something out of a horror movie."

"It's so creepy—and ugly." Izumo says. "Is this really the best place you could find to do this?" She turns, giving her bag to Moriyama. Which, to her credit, Paku tries to talk her out of. Nativity sits feather light on Moriyama's chest. It's better this way, when she thinks sh's being helpful over being used; clears the air.

Then comes the exam. It's all pretty basic stuff, it's just a lot of it, is all. You skim through the easy things and check them off accordingly. You go back to the harder things, then. Going about writing Latin phrases correctly and murmuring the correct doses for medicine and other drugs and poisons.

"I want everyone up by six tomorrow, that'll give us an hour to review the correct answers." Which is bullshit because you're the one who founded a good chunk of this knowledge, but you aren't too sour about it. It's fun, really. And you're bored enough.

"I want a bath—" Izumo says. "come on Paku."

Actually, a shower doesn't sound too bad right now. You feel like you smell like menthol right now. Smoke in your mouth. Zirka taps at the window, right, you left her outside. Yukio looks at you as you open the window and Zirka plops in and rests on your head.

"What, Sensei, you bring your gun everywhere, why can't I bring Zirka?"

He sighs and doesn't answer. "Nothing Tsubaki."

"Hey, Tsubaki, you're the oldest right?" Suguru asks.

"Yeah, second-year." You say. "That's why none of you have normal classes with me."

"Yeah, Tsubaki-senpai here is older than Okumura-sensei. Isn't that right?"

"Yep, I also know Latin better than him." You grin.

He groans. "One time I translated a sentence wrong—"

"Yeah, but I also translated every book in the monastery to Japanese. Not only English."

"You know each other?" Konekomeru asks.

"Oh, yeah, I was orphaned and adopted by their father. It was two years ago I believe. My mother died in a terrorist explosion— you remember the Kyoto Flights bombing, right?"

They nod. You don't say anything after that. You didn't actually plan for that to happen, but sometimes tragedy follows you. There's nothing you can do about it, you're a bad omen.

"She died then?"

"Yeah." You say.

They look at you with pity eyes, like they feel sympathy. You wonder, they're so human, it's sickening. You turn away, knock on wood, "I'm going to take a shower, see ya."

__

You're sure these walls weren't meant to hear through, but you can. Probably because you aren't human, but regardless, it's irritating. You step out of the shower, snag one of the towels and change back into your clothes. Zirka is perched on the top of the lockers, watching you. Your hair is wet, darker than it normally is. Like this it reaches past your nose. You wonder if you should grow it out.

Your thoughts are cut short by a scream. A blood curdling thing.

You put your shoes on and head out— it's coming from the girls bathhouse, you wonder if you'll be condemned for going in. You close your eyes, take off your tie and wear it like a blindfold. Your sense of smell will make up for it. The room smells entirely to much like rot.

"Zirka, attack." You say through the smell of blood. Menthol perches through your stomach. You don't actually have anything to attack with without making it look like your entirely inhuman.

"Stand down," you chant in The Tongue of Rot and Decay. "Creature of Asteroth release your agony unto the bridge and stand down."

Izumo summons her familiars, but they sense her weakness just as well as you. That, that is when Rin bursts in, using his sheathed sword to hit the familiars on the head, vanishing them. You focus your attention to the Kin of Rot. This one is strange, you realize. It smells something closer to you, to blood.

(Do you bleed blue, mister?

No, I bleed—)

"Rin! Tsubaki!" Moriyama-kun bursts in, "You take care of the ghoul, Rin, and I'll take care of Paku-san! Keep chanting Tsubaki-kun, it's slowing down the ghoul."

You nod. "Listen, kin of Asteroth, for I am the mighty End, your final breath, a toast goodbye, you will be mine in the end so obey me over your master for a moment and," You say this part guttural and angelic, "stand down."

Rin attacks and you hear it clear as day, like a knife through warm butter, Little prince. The ghoul pin Rin down, I only do as my master commands me to.

Yukio comes through the door shooting. The bullets ricochet off the walls and into the back of the demon, it runs up, latching onto the walls to escape. Bullet shells line the floor in a nonsense pattern. It does, in the end, escape. You narrow your eyes, you wonder if that awful thing is happening where the white of your eye is inked black and the iris goes silver, that unholy color. Your pupil, left a goats eye, and right a cat slit. You wonder if your bleeding any, if that inhumane ichor is seeping through your clothes, through your hair.

"Are you okay?" He asks. "Are you hurt?"

"You're late!"

"I still made it, didn't I?"

You hold your breath and count to seven, when you get to seven you count back to zero. There was a rhyme that went that way, you think.

Close you eyes and count to seven. When you wake you'll be in heaven.

It's a good joke, really.