22
Onryo wrapped his hands around Isagi, his form shifting, coalescing from shadow into something more solid. The darkness that had been formless and vast now took shape—a tall man with very long black hair that cascaded down his back like a waterfall of ink. His skin was white as fresh snow, almost translucent, and both of his hands were black up to the elbow, as if he had dipped them in paint that would never wash off.
His facial features were sharp and uncanny. His face showed only his eyes—those dark, ancient pupils that held centuries of waiting—while his other features remained as black as the void, shifting and indistinct, like a face that hadn't decided what it wanted to be.
He smiled.
The grin was big, sharp, full of teeth that hadn't existed a moment ago. It stretched across his face in a way that should have been terrifying—but to Isagi, unconscious and dying in his arms, it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Finally.
Onryo cradled the small teenager against his chest, feeling the weak flutter of his heartbeat, the shallow rise and fall of his breath. The burns covered most of his body—his chest, his arms, his legs—and the wound on his head was still bleeding, a slow trickle of blood that stained Onryo's white skin red.
Finally, Onryo thought again, his sharp teeth glinting in the dim light. He is reunited with his creator. His saviour.
He had been waiting for 527 years.
Five hundred and twenty-seven years of watching, of waiting, of hoping. He had waited for Isagi to come to this exact place—this forest, this crevice, this moment. He had waited through decades and centuries, through wars and peace, through the rise and fall of empires.
He had waited patiently.
And finally, his patience was rewarded.
The reward was as sweet as the honey Isagi had once given him to taste ( thought it's been a while since he's actually eaten anything other than a human, but still u get me).
Isagi came.
This time, Onryo vowed, his blackened hands tightening around the boy's fragile body, I will not let him go. I will not let others take him away again. I will not lose my one and only family member—the only person who ever cared for me.
He looked down at Isagi's face—burned, bleeding, but still beautiful—and something ancient and tender stirred in his chest.
I will not lose him again.
This time...
Let me care for u
Sengoku Era. 1510s.
It was an era that had no peace in its dictionary.
A turbulent time of near-constant civil war, where brother fought brother and neighbour turned against neighbour. The land was soaked in blood, and the cries of the dying were as common as the cawing of crows. It was an era where even breathing alive in peace was a luxury.
In the old village of Sinku, nestled in a valley between two mountains, there was a boy named Yoichi.
Yoichi was a boy who was adored by the whole village for his politeness and kindness. No one could find a single reason to hate such a boy.
He worked in an apothecary—a small, run-down shop at the edge of the village, where the sick and injured came to seek treatment. The villagers knew him as a healer, a herbalist, a young man with gentle hands and a kind heart.
But Yoichi was also something else.
He was a witch.
The villagers didn't know—couldn't know—because if they did, they would have burned him at the stake. Forbidden magic was not tolerated in Sinku. It was not tolerated anywhere. Those who practised it were hunted, tortured, and killed.
After all, witches are considered as heretics who dared to challenge the laws that the gods have set in this world, thus making them hated by people. They were also known to sacrifice people for their own greed for power and wealth.
But Yoichi used his magic for the sake of his people. He never harmed others. He only healed. He only helped.
The only person who knew his secret was his mentor, an old man who had found him as a child, took him in and taught him the ways of herbs and medicine and, in secret, the ways of magic.
But his mentor had died three years ago.
His mentor left him with a book containing all the forbidden rituals a witch could perform and an old, run-down apothecary shop that is also a small house for Yoichi to live in.
Now, Yoichi was truly alone.
"Yoichi! Please help!"
The voice was small, desperate, and high with fear. A girl—no older than seven—tugged at Yoichi's sleeve, her face streaked with tears, her eyes wide with terror.
"Please! My brother went to the mountains to get herbs, and wolves attacked him! Please, you have to help him!"
Yoichi knelt, bringing himself to her level. His dark blue hair, long enough to reach his neck, was tied back in a neat style that made his sharp features stand out. His eyes—deep blue, the colour of the ocean at midnight—were soft with comfort and love.
"Show me where," he said quietly.
The girl grabbed his hand and pulled him through the village, past the rice paddies and the small wooden houses, to a modest home at the edge of the settlement.
The bamboo door slid open, and Yoichi's breath caught.
The boy was around eighteen, tall, broad-shouldered, with the kind of build that came from working in the fields. But his left arm was gone. Torn off at the shoulder, the wound ragged and bleeding, the bone visible through the torn flesh.
He is a few minutes away from being claimed by the Grim Reaper.
Wolves, Yoichi thought, his medical mind already working. He managed to run away. Thank the gods he at least had that much luck.
"Bring me water," Yoichi said, already kneeling beside the boy. "Clean cloth. And the herbs hanging from the ceiling in my shop—the purple ones. Quickly."
The girl ran.
Yoichi worked. His hands moved with practised precision, cleaning the wound, stemming the bleeding, applying a poultice of crushed herbs that would fight infection. And when the girl returned with the purple herbs, he crushed them into a fine powder and mixed them with water, creating a paste that he spread over the torn flesh.
Then, quietly—so quietly that even the girl, standing right beside him, didn't notice—he whispered a spell.
Magic flowed from his fingertips, warm and golden, seeping into the boy's body. It wasn't enough to regrow his arm—that was beyond even Yoichi's power—but it was enough to close the broken blood vessels, to stop the internal bleeding, to give the boy a chance to survive.
The boy's breathing steadied.
Yoichi sat back, exhausted. The spell had taken more out of him than he expected. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his forehead.
"Your brother will live," he said to the girl. "But he will need care. Change his bandages twice a day. Give him this tea—" he pulled a small pouch from his pocket, "—three times a day. And do not let him move his left side for at least a month."
The girl's eyes filled with tears. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you, thank you, thank you—"
She pressed a small pouch into Yoichi's hands. It clinked with coins.
"This is all our money. Please, take it. It's not enough, but—"
Yoichi closed her fingers around the pouch and pressed it back into her hands.
"Pay me by taking care of your brother," he said softly. "That is all I ask."
The girl's eyes shone with something that might have been hero-worship. In the village of Sinku, Yoichi was the only person the whole village wholeheartedly loved.
He was kind. He was gentle. He never asked for payment, only for his patients to get better.
And when he smiled—which he did often, even when he was tired, even when he was in pain—the whole world seemed to warm.
A reincarnation of an angel.
That is what the girl thought of when he saw Yoichi smile.
Yoichi walked back to his apothecary shop as the sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink.
The shop was run-down—the thatched roof was patchy, the wooden walls were weathered, and the sliding door stuck halfway open. But it was home. It had been home since his mentor had died, and he had no desire to live anywhere else.
He was about to step inside when he heard it.
A cry.
Thin, weak, pitiful. Coming from the backyard.
Yoichi's heart lurched. He ran around the side of the shop, his feet slipping on the damp grass, and found—
A baby.
Wrapped in torn cloth that might have once been a kimono. Left in the grass, exposed to the elements, its tiny body blue with cold.
Yoichi scooped the baby into his arms, his mind racing. Who would leave a child here? Why would they—
Then he saw the blood.
The cloth the baby was wrapped in wasn't just torn. It was soaked. And as Yoichi looked closer, he realised with dawning horror that the cloth wasn't a blanket at all.
It was part of a woman's sleeve.
The mother had been attacked. Wolves, probably the same pack that had attacked the boy earlier. They had torn her apart, and in her dying moments, she had wrapped her baby in the only thing she had left—her own torn clothing—and pushed him toward the village.
The baby's crying was growing weaker. His tiny chest was barely moving.
He's dying, Yoichi realised. He's on death's door.
This poor child.
He rushed inside, laying the baby on his workbench, his hands flying over the tiny body. He checked for wounds, for broken bones, for anything he could treat with herbs and medicine.
There was nothing.
The baby wasn't injured. He was just... fading. His soul was slipping away, like water through cupped hands.
I can't save him, Yoichi thought, his heart breaking. Not with normal medicine. Not with herbs.
But there was another way.
Forbidden magic. The kind that his mentor had warned him never to use. The kind that took as much as it gave. The kind that demanded a price.
Yoichi looked at the baby's face—so small, so fragile, so innocent—and made his choice.
The baby had reminded him of his own situation when he was a small child who was abandoned by his own mother before his mentor took him in.
Hurt
Alone
And dying.
The ritual required three things.
Blood. A circle of salt. And a sacrifice.
Yoichi pricked his finger with a needle, letting seven drops of blood fall onto the baby's forehead. He drew a circle of salt around the workbench, his hands steady despite his racing heart.
And then he sacrificed.
Sixty-four years of my life, he thought, feeling the years drain from him like sand through an hourglass. Sixty-four years that I will never get back.
His health went next—his strong heart, his sharp eyes, his steady hands. He felt himself weaken, felt something inside him crack and crumble.
And then his memories. Seven years of his past, ripped from his mind like pages torn from a book. He would never remember them again. They were gone.
His memories before he met his mentor would be gone ( Not that Isagi actually fucking cares after all its just bad memories Imo)
But the baby lived.
The tiny body on the workbench glowed—soft at first, then brighter, then blinding. Yoichi shielded his eyes, and when the light faded, he looked down.
The baby had changed.
His skin was white as snow, almost translucent. His hands were black up to the elbows, as if dipped in shadow. His face was smooth, featureless, except for his eyes—dark pupils that shifted and swirled like pools of ink.
He was no longer entirely human.
But he was alive.
Yoichi stared at the baby for a long moment. Then, slowly, he smiled.
"Onryo," he said softly. "From now on, your name is Onryo."
A vengeful ghost.
Is what Isagi is reminded of by looking at the baby, its appearance almost identical to that of folklore of a vengeful ghost that once roamed the woods of this forest.
The baby—Onryo—cooed, his dark eyes blinking up at Yoichi with something that might have been recognition.
Yoichi buried his mother the next morning.
He found her body—or what was left of it—at the edge of the forest, near where he had found Onryo. Wolves had torn her apart. Only her arm remained, still clutching the torn cloth that had wrapped her baby.
She didn't abandon him, Yoichi realised, tears burning his eyes. She died protecting him. She pushed him toward the village with her last strength.
Isagi smiled bitterly.
If only his mother had the same love towards him, perhaps he wouldn't have been here and would have enjoyed at least a few loving carresing from her.
But again.
It's only if.
He cast a spell over her remains—a simple one, just enough to let her spirit rest—and buried her beneath a large oak tree.
"I will take care of your son," Yoichi promised, his voice thick. "I will love him. I will protect him. I will give him the life you wanted him to have."
"The life that I wished my mother would have given me, a life full of love and warmth"
He returned to the shop, where Onryo was waiting.
The baby had stopped crying. He lay on the workbench, hands moving in the air, his dark eyes fixed on the door, and when Yoichi walked in, his face—still featureless, still strange—seemed to brighten.
Yoichi picked him up, cradling him against his chest.
He sang a few sweet lullabies that he once heard the mothers in the village sing.
Onryo snuggled closer, his eyes slowly faltering.
Years and years had passed.
Onryo grew.
Not quickly—not like a normal child. He aged slowly, taking decades to reach what should have taken years. But he grew. And as he grew, his appearance remained strange, uncanny, unsettling.
The villagers stared when Yoichi brought him to the market. Mothers pulled their children away. Men muttered curses and made warding signs.
"Demon child," they whispered. "Cursed. Unnatural."
Onryo didn't understand at first. He was young—not in body, but in mind—and he didn't know why people looked at him with fear and disgust.
"Yoichi," he asked one day, his voice soft, uncertain. "Why do they hate me?"
Yoichi knelt, bringing himself to Onryo's level. His dark blue hair had grown longer over the years, and his face had aged—the price of the ritual showing in the lines around his eyes and the grey streaking his temples.
"They don't hate you," Yoichi said gently. "They fear what they don't understand. And they don't understand you," he coaxed the small boy.
"Will they ever understand?"
Yoichi's smile was sad. "Perhaps not. But that doesn't matter." He cupped Onryo's face in his hands, his thumbs brushing the smooth, featureless skin. "Because I understand you. And I will always be here. No matter what."
Onryo's dark eyes shimmered with something that might have been tears.
He didn't cry. He had never cried, not since the ritual. But something inside him ached—a good ache, a warm ache, the ache of being loved.
Yoichi is my family, Onryo thought, pressing himself into the warmth of the older man's embrace. My only family. And I will never let him go.
A decade had passed.
Onryo grew into a tall, lean young man—though "young" was a relative term. He had been alive for over twenty-two years now, but he looked no older than seventeen. His long black hair cascaded down his back like a waterfall of ink. His skin was still white as snow, his hands still black to the elbows. His face remained smooth and featureless except for his eyes, which had grown deeper, older, wiser.
He was beautiful in a way that was not quite human.
And he was lonely.
The villagers still avoided him. They crossed to the other side of the street when he walked by. They whispered curses under their breath and made signs to ward off evil.
But Onryo didn't mind.
Because he had Yoichi.
"Onryo," Yoichi called from the shop.
Onryo's dark eyes brightened. He hurried inside, his long hair swaying behind him.
"Yes, Yoichi?"
Yoichi was sitting at his workbench, surrounded by herbs and medicines. His hair was almost completely grey now, and his face was lined with age. But his eyes—those deep blue eyes that Onryo loved—were still warm, still kind.
"I have been called to the frontline," Yoichi said quietly. "The war has reached our borders. They need healers."
Onryo's heart stopped.
"Tomorrow," Yoichi continued, his voice soft, "I leave. I don't know when I will return."
"No." Onryo's voice was sharp, desperate. "You can't. You can't leave me. I won't—I can't—"
Yoichi stood, crossing the room to where Onryo stood trembling. He reached up—Onryo was taller than him now—and cupped his face in his weathered hands.
"You are strong," Yoichi said. "Stronger than you know. And you are good—so good, Onryo. Never forget that."
"But I need you." Onryo's voice cracked. "You're all I have."
Yoichi's eyes glistened. "I know. And I will come back. I promise."
He pulled Onryo into an embrace, and Onryo buried his face in Yoichi's shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of herbs and medicine and warmth.
"Wait for me," Yoichi whispered. "Will you wait for me?"
Onryo's arms tightened around him. "I will wait for you forever," he said fiercely. "A decade. A century. An eternity. I will wait."
Yoichi smiled.
"Don't cry, it's not like I will die on the battlefield," Isagi joked.
(Spoiler he actually fucking did ┗( T﹏T )┛)
The next morning, Onryo stood on the porch of the apothecary shop—the porch that Yoichi had built with his own hands, just for Onryo—and watched Yoichi walk away.
He waved.
Yoichi waved back.
And then he was gone.
Onryo waited.
Spring came, and the cherry blossoms bloomed. Onryo sat on the porch, watching the petals fall, waiting for Yoichi to come home.
Summer came, and the air grew thick with heat. Onryo stayed inside, tending to the herbs in Yoichi's garden, waiting.
Autumn came, and the leaves turned gold and red. Onryo walked to the edge of the village, staring down the road that Yoichi had taken, waiting.
Winter came, and the snow fell, covering everything in white. Onryo sat on the porch, his blackened hands buried in his sleeves, waiting.
He waited.
And waited.
And waited.
But Isagi never came.
The years passed.
The shop fell into disrepair. The thatched roof rotted and collapsed. The wooden walls weathered and cracked. The garden overgrew, the herbs choking in the wild tangle of weeds.
Onryo didn't care. He sat on the porch—what was left of it—and waited.
The villagers came and went. They avoided the old apothecary shop, whispering about the demon who lived there. Some threw stones. Some spat curses. Some tried to burn the building down.
Onryo ignored them all.
He waited.
One day, the earth shook.
An earthquake—violent, devastating—ripped through the village. Buildings collapsed. The ground split open. And the old apothecary shop, already worn and fragile, sank into a hole that opened beneath it.
Onryo fell.
He tumbled into darkness, into the earth, into a crevice that had not existed before. When he opened his eyes, he was underground, surrounded by dirt and rock and the rotting remains of the shop.
He was alone.
But he was still waiting.
The centuries passed.
Onryo grew stronger. The darkness that surrounded him—the abyss that had been his home for so long—fed him, nurtured him, made him something more than he had been before.
He was no longer just a boy who had been saved by a healer.
He was something ancient. Something powerful. Something hungry.
The villagers who had thrown stones at him, who had cursed him, who had tried to burn him—they came to his domain eventually. Drawn by curiosity, by greed, by the whispers of treasure hidden in the earth.
Onryo ate them.
Not quickly. Not mercifully. He savoured them—their fear, their pain, their desperation. He tore them apart with his blackened hands and consumed them, body and soul.
He killed 7,291 people in his lifetime.
Men, women, children. It didn't matter. Anyone who dared to enter his domain became his prey.
The more he ate, the stronger he became.
But he was still waiting.
Waiting for a certain blue-haired man to return.
What Onryo didn't know—couldn't know—was that Yoichi had died.
He had gone to the frontline, as he had promised, and he had healed countless soldiers. He had saved lives that should have been lost. He had been a light in the darkness of war.
But even lights can be extinguished.
Yoichi was struck by an arrow during a battle—a stray shot, meant for someone else, that pierced his chest and lodged in his heart. He died on the battlefield, surrounded by strangers, with no one to hold his hand.
His last thought was of Onryo.
I'm sorry, he thought, his vision fading. I'm sorry I couldn't come home. I wanted to celebrate your birthday. I wanted to see you smile again.
I hope... I hope we meet again. In another life.
He closed his eyes.
And Yoichi Isagi died.
(I don't know why I laughed at this part, I'm afraid I might be a psychopath TvT)
Onryo never knew.
Because he was still waiting.
Present Day
Onryo looked down at Isagi's burned, broken body and felt something crack inside him.
He came back, Onryo thought, his dark eyes burning. After 527 years, he came back to me.
But he's dying.
The fire had burned Isagi's chest and legs, leaving the flesh blackened and weeping. The wound on his head had stopped bleeding, but his pulse was weak—so weak—and his breath was shallow.
I won't let him die, Onryo vowed. Not again. Not when I've finally found him.
He knew what he had to do.
The forbidden magic—the same ritual that Yoichi had used to save him, all those centuries ago. Onryo had never performed it himself, but he had watched Yoichi do it. He had memorized every step, every word, every gesture.
He would save Isagi. Even if it costs him everything.
The ritual was different this time.
Onryo had no salt. No needle. No workbench. But he had something Yoichi hadn't had: power. Centuries of consuming souls had made him strong—stronger than any human, stronger than most demons.
He didn't need to sacrifice years of his life.
He sacrificed his power.
The darkness that had sustained him for centuries flowed out of him, into Isagi, knitting together burned flesh and broken bones. Onryo felt himself weaken, felt the centuries catch up with him, but he didn't stop.
He poured everything he had into the boy in his arms.
And when it was done, Isagi opened his eyes.
Blue. Deep blue, like the ocean at midnight.
Isagi stared up at the face above him—sharp and uncanny, with dark eyes that seemed to hold centuries of sorrow—and felt no fear.
I should be scared, he thought. I should be screaming.
But he wasn't.
Because something about this strange, inhuman face felt... familiar.
"Who..." Isagi's voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. "Who are you?"
Onryo's sharp grin softened into something almost gentle. "I am Onryo," he said. "And I have been waiting for you for a very long time."
Isagi sat up, his body aching but whole. He looked down at his chest—at the fresh, pink skin where burns had been—and felt his mind reel.
"I was dead," he said slowly. "I should be dead."
"You were," Onryo said. "And you are not." He tilted his head, his dark eyes studying Isagi's face. "You are something else now. Not human. Not entirely. Half."
"Half?"
"You can still feel. Still love. Still hurt. But you are not bound by the same rules as humans." Onryo paused. "You are dead, Yoichi. But I have made you alive. As long as I exist, you will exist."
Isagi's breath caught.
Yoichi.
The name stirred something in his chest—a memory that wasn't his, a life that he had lived but couldn't remember.
"Why do you call me that?" Isagi asked. "My name is Isagi. Isagi Yoichi."
Onryo's dark eyes shimmered. "Not always," he said softly. "Not to me."
Onryo explained.
He told Isagi about the Sengoku era. About the apothecary shop in the village of Sinku. About the healer with dark blue hair and kind eyes who had saved a dying baby with forbidden magic.
He told Isagi about waiting. About the decades and centuries, the springs and summers and winters, the porch that Yoichi had built and the promise that had never been fulfilled.
He told Isagi about the earthquake. About the crevice. About the 7,291 souls he had consumed in his hunger and his loneliness.
And he told Isagi about the ritual—the one he had just performed, the one that had bound them together for as long as Isagi wished to live.
"You are not human anymore," Onryo said. "But you are not a demon either. You are something in between. You can feel everything a human feels—love, joy, sorrow, fear. But you cannot die. Not unless you want to."
Isagi stared at him, his mind struggling to process.
"You want to make a contract with me," Isagi said slowly. "A contract that lasts until I decide to die."
"Yes."
"And you want me to give you a name."
Onryo nodded. "To seal the contract. A name that only you can give me."
Isagi was quiet for a long moment. He thought about everything Onryo had told him—about the healer who had sacrificed sixty-four years of his life to save a baby, about the boy who had waited for centuries for that healer to return.
It sounded...
Familiar to him.
Like he knows who the man Onryo had been waiting for this whole time. But he couldn't put his hands on it.
And then he thought about the name that had risen to his lips the moment he saw Onryo's face.
"Onryo," Isagi said.
Onryo's eyes widened.
"Your name is Onryo." Isagi smiled—a small, uncertain smile, but a smile nonetheless. "It feels right."
Onryo's sharp grin returned, but there was something wet in his eyes. Something that might have been tears.
So your soul remembered.
"You never change," Onryo whispered. "Even after all this time, you never change."
The contract was sealed.
Isagi felt something settle in his chest—a warmth, a presence, the shadow that had been lurking at the edges of his vision for as long as he could remember. It was Onryo. Always Onryo. Waiting.
"What happens now?" Isagi asked.
Onryo's dark eyes flickered toward the forest, toward the distant lights of the resort. "Now," he said, "we deal with those who hurt you."
Onryo rose to his feet, his tall form casting a long shadow in the moonlight. His blackened hands curled into fists.
"Forty people," he said. "Including the three who burned you. Including the coach who tormented you. Including every person who watched and did nothing."
Isagi's heart pounded. "Onryo—"
"They hurt you," Onryo said, his voice low and dangerous. "They burned you. They left you to die. And they would have gotten away with it."
He turned to look at Isagi, his dark eyes burning.
"I will not let them."
"Not when I'm here"
Onryo moved through the forest like a shadow, silent and swift. Isagi followed, his legs shaky but his heart steady.
The first to die were the teachers.
Coach Tanaka was in his hut, drinking sake and complaining about the students. He didn't see the shadow that slipped through the door. He didn't feel the hands that closed around his throat. He only knew darkness.
Ms Hayashi died in her sleep, her face peaceful, her body untouched.
Onryo was merciful with them.
He was not merciful with the trio.
Tsuki, Ikari, and Fuji were in Hut 3, celebrating. They had killed Isagi—or so they thought—, and they were drunk on the power of it, on the relief of being free from the boy who had outshone them.
The door slid open.
Tsuki looked up, expecting a teacher, expecting someone to tell them to be quiet.
He saw Isagi.
His breath hitched.
"You're dead," Tsuki breathed, his face going white. "You're supposed to be dead."
"H-how are you alive?" He whispered in pure fear.
Isagi stepped into the hut, his blue eyes cold.
"I was," he said. "But I got better."
Onryo appeared behind him, his tall form filling the doorway, his blackened hands dripping with shadow.
Tsuki screamed.
Onryo didn't kill them quickly.
He wanted them to suffer. He wanted them to feel every moment of fear, every second of pain, every ounce of the terror that Isagi had felt when he was tied to that tree and set on fire.
He tore Ikari apart first—his screams echoing through the forest, ignored by the other students who were too far away to hear.
Fuji tried to run. Onryo caught him by the ankle and dragged him back.
Tsuki watched it all, frozen, his mind broken by the impossibility of what he was seeing.
"Please," Tsuki begged, tears streaming down his face. "Please, I'll do anything. I'll leave. I'll never come back. I'll—"
Onryo looked at Isagi.
Isagi looked at Tsuki.
And Isagi remembered the fire. The pain. The way Tsuki had smiled as he watched him burn.
"No," Isagi said quietly. "You won't."
Onryo smiled.
The bodies were moved to a small hut at the edge of the resort—all forty of them, stacked like cordwood.
Onryo raised his hand, and dark flames erupted from his palm. They caught the wood, the bodies, the walls, and spread quickly.
The fire was black—dark magic that snow could not extinguish, that wind could not fan, that water could not quench. It burned and burned, consuming everything, leaving nothing behind.
Tsuki was the last to die.
Onryo had used his dark magic to control Tsuki's mind, forcing him to kill Ikari and Fuji before turning the blade on himself. The scene was carefully arranged—a murder-suicide, driven by jealousy and rage.
The black sheep.
The perfect scapegoat.
Isagi stood at the edge of the clearing, watching the black flames consume the hut.
His hands were shaking. His breath was coming in short, uneven gasps.
They're dead, he thought. They're all dead. And I—
The fire crackled. The flames danced.
And Isagi remembered.
Not the fire that Onryo had set—the other fire. The one that had burned him. The one that had melted his skin and seared his lungs and made him scream without sound.
His knees buckled.
He couldn't breathe. His chest was tight, his vision blurring, his mind spinning.
The fire. The fire. The fire—
"Isagi." Onryo's voice was distant, muffled, like he was speaking from underwater. "Isagi, look at me."
Isagi couldn't look. He couldn't move. He couldn't—
Hands cupped his face. Warm. Gentle. Black up to the elbows.
"Look at me," Onryo said again.
Isagi looked.
Onryo's dark eyes were steady, calm, and grounding. "You are safe," he said. "The fire cannot hurt you. Not anymore."
"I can still feel it," Isagi gasped. "The burning. I can still—"
Onryo pressed his forehead against Isagi's.
"Let me help you," he whispered. "Let me take this from you."
Onryo reached into Isagi's mind, gentle as a breath, and found the memory. The fire. The pain. The terror.
He knew he had to change it.
But...
He didn't erase it—he couldn't, not without damaging Isagi's mind. But he altered it. Changed it. Shifted the edges so that the memory was no longer a wound but a scar.
Something that would replace the horrifying incident he had experienced with something more...
Acceptable by human terms.
After all. It's better than remembering that you were once burned alive
Now, when Isagi remembered the fire, he didn't remember burning.
He remembered Tsuki, Ikari, and Fuji burning his group photo—the one of him, Hugo, Charles, and Loki—while he watched, helpless and furious.
And he remembered deciding, in that moment, that he would not be helpless anymore.
That he would end things his own way.
And he did.
Isagi blinked.
The black flames were still burning, but they no longer frightened him.
"They deserved it," Isagi said slowly. "What they did to me—what they did to my photo—"
"They deserved it," Onryo agreed.
Isagi looked at his hands. They were steady now.
"I killed them," Isagi said.
"We killed them," Onryo corrected.
Isagi was quiet for a moment. Then, softly: "I didn't do it wrong, did I? Burning them?"
Onryo's smile was gentle, almost tender. "No," he said, cupping Isagi's cheek. "You did well. So well, Yoichi."
Isagi leaned into the touch, his eyes closing.
Yoichi, he thought. He keeps calling me that.
It feels... right.
"Ne, Onryo." He tilted his head facing the tall man.
"Yes?"
Isagi opened his eyes, looking up at the tall man who had quite the uncanny look ( Which he didn't mind for some unknown reason :D).
"Will you stay with me?"
Onryo's dark eyes shimmered. "Forever," he said. "If you'll have me."
Isagi smiled.
"Yeah," he said. "We're meant to be together."
Onryo pulled him into an embrace, and Isagi let himself be held. The shadow was warm, familiar, like coming home after a long journey.
He didn't feel scared.
He felt safe.
The black flames burned through the night, and by morning, there was nothing left of the hut or the bodies inside.
The police investigation concluded that Tsuki Yama, driven by jealousy and rage, had murdered his classmates and teachers before setting the fire and taking his own life.
They had found a small letter written in his own blood confessing his sins and the confirmation that he is indeed the culprit who had killed all forty-two people. Burning them all alive before taking his own life as if to avoid the consequences of his action.
Isagi Yoichi, the sole survivor of the tragedy, was hailed as a hero. He had tried to stop Tsuki, the news reports said. He had fought bravely, but he had been overpowered.
And Tsuki? Even after his death, people cursed him and called him a psychopath, a monster. But if they knew the truth, would they still call him that? ( I would call him that to be honest, like he actually planned to kill someone alive by burning them in a hidden place, like be for real, that's a psychopathic behaviour there :>)
The school held a memorial service. Parents wept. Students mourned.
Isagi stood at the back, his face somber, his eyes dry.
Onryo stood beside him, invisible to everyone else, his blackened hand resting on Isagi's shoulder.
"Are you sad?" Onryo asked quietly.
Isagi thought about it.
"No," he said. "I don't think I am."
Onryo squeezed his shoulder.
"Good," he said. "They didn't deserve your tears."
Isagi watched the memorial service—the crying parents, the grieving students, the teachers who had never protected him—and felt nothing.
Maybe I'm not human anymore, he thought. Maybe Onryo was right.
But maybe that's not such a bad thing.
It's all their fault in the first place.
----------------------------------------------
Yeah, so that's how Isagi met Onryo ;D.
Another thing to add is that Onryo had changed Isagi's memories altering them but even so there is still natural reaction like how isagi dislike being near a fire as he felt "Discomfort" as if he is touching the fore even if he isnt and about isagi's personality well he had to play the role of a poor victim who is bullied and tried to stop his bully from killing people and failed. Isagi had been through a few therapy sessions and thanks to Onryo, he managed to manipulate the minds of the people he sees, deeming him an innocent victim.
About his soccer skill, uh...
Onryo made a small mistake and accidentally also altered his memories of playing with Hugo, Loki, and Charles, changing it so that the three of them calling him unworthy caused Yoichi to be unable to play better, which is one of the main reasons why Yoichi is also insecure when playing with them. ( Onryo did it on purpose, actually cause he didn't like how the three were looking at Isagi when he peeked into Isagi's memories)
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