Chapter 88

Happy (Merry X-mas) Birthday Eve! (ハッピー（メリクリ）バースデー！イヴ) is the 88th chapter of Kazue Katō's Ao no Exorcist.

Summary
The Cram School crew reflects on Shiemi quitting Cram School classes and wanting to do a hybrid Christmas-Birthday party. Rin goes as far as to suggest that Shiemi might have a terminal illness to explain this phenomenon, but is dismissed by the rest of the group. He decides that the best way to find out is to ask Shiemi directly, but is quickly held back by everyone, as they believe this incident to be a private matter. Konekomaru alternatively suggests that, if not death, then Shiemi may have to move somewhere far away as a reason for her Cram School exit. Still, her reasons are yet known by the crew members.

Together, they meet up to prepare for the party, and are split up into teams. Rin and Konekomaru are placed in the Food Team and are in charge of buying the necessary food for the party. Ryuji and Yukio are put in the Decoration Team and are responsible for purchasing the tools and materials for decorating the party. Izumo and Shima are part of the Cake Team and handle the cake buying. Lastly, Shiemi takes care of acquiring a Christmas tree and a suitable location to hold the party.

As the Cake Team heads over to a popular cake store, Izumo asks Shima if he knows anything about Shiemi, to which he replies that he may be a spy, but he does not know everything. It is evident that there is still an underlying resentment that Izumo has towards Shima for the incidents at the facility in Inari. However, Izumo goes on to say that Shima is lucky that the rest of the group is as forgiving and allowed him to re-join the crew. Shima agrees, thinking that the feeling is a bit strange, to which Izumo also shares the mutual feeling. After lining up at the store, they finally reach the counter where the cakes are displayed, and Izumo loosens up her tough demeanor.

Meanwhile, the Decoration Team is out to purchase supplies, with Ryuji taking the lead on the task, as Yukio says he is not familiar with this area of arts and crafts. As they look through the aisles, Yukio asks Ryuji how things are with Lightning, thinking back to his eavesdropping at the Monastery about Tadashi Misumi's death and wondering if Ryuji was there to witness it. Ryuji brushes the question off, saying that things are good.

Lastly, the Food Team arrives at the supermarket and agree on purchasing fried chicken and sushi for the party.

Later that night, Ryuji goes through some documents for the ongoing Blue Night investigation, and discovers a subject's name to be "Shiro", who looks a lot like a younger version of Shiro Fujimoto. He is a clone of Azazel. He also finds out that the subject "Shiro" is on page number 004 and the listing pages jump to 006, with 005 missing. He goes to Lightning proposing that 005 may be Satan and asks if he knows anything, starting to question what exactly Gehenna and Satan are. Lightning shares the same desire to know the answers to these questions, but tells Ryuji to sleep on it and to research more on the matter later. Ryuji then asks for permission to go to the Christmas Party the next day, to which Lightning teaches him that he does not need to follow his orders that strictly and can "slack off" every once in a while.

Yukio chats with Shura that evening and tells her he does not know how to act at parties, but Shura urges Yukio to live a little and hang out more with people his own age. He jokingly asks her if she wants to take his place at the party, to which she replies that she is busy on December 24th for a "marriage-hunting party". The incidents at Aomori gave her a second chance at life and she wanted to take life seriously now. Yukio wishes her good luck, and she begins to wonder whether he is mocking her.

The next day, everyone gathers with their goods and they begin to see the party come to fruition. Ryuji and Yukio start making the decorations, for which it is evident that Yukio is not as skilled. He admits that he is "totally hopeless" in arts and crafts, and remembers that Shiro used to take his and his brother's craftwork anyways to decorate the monastery. Ryuji, knowing a bit of the Okumura brothers past throughout the Blue Night investigation, slightly empathizes with Yukio. However, this memory stirs up another from a past Christmas dinner during his childhood, and Yukio recalls having asked Shiro who his and his brother's biological parents were. Shiro tells him and his brother that he found them under a bridge, to which Yukio does not believe him. However, Rin at the time does not think much of it and tells Yukio to stop asking. That thought has stayed with Yukio to this day, as he still wants to know who their biological parents are.