Chapter 3: One Day He Will Become A Demon
I
Satoshi stared at the silk robe draped upon a stand. It was a constant reminder he would become an Onmyouji…a spiritual practitioner who was said to have mastery over life and death, balance and atrophy, yin and yang. Even so…when will he get his shikigami? The shikigami was a true symbol of the Onmyouji. Sometimes a particularly skilled Onmyouji could summon a legendary creature to command under his or her will. If Satoshi summoned such a creature, he would be a powerful Onmyouji. Just like his father.

A grin stretched from ear to ear as he walked toward the stand holding the regalia that he was meant to bear one day. To show his status as a real Onmyouji. He wanted so much to wear those robes, though he still wore the robes of an acolyte, meaning that his training wasn’t complete yet. But perhaps…an idea was forming in his head, and Satoshi couldn’t help but think that there was something valuable in this line of thinking as he conjured up an idea to summon a shikigami. If he presented a shikigami to the elders at his age, they would be impressed. They would have to let him pass and go on his journey sooner, to follow after his father!

Satoshi tiptoed on the wooden slats, going to the Elder’s house where potions and scrolls and pens and feather quills and ink bottles and elixirs and plumage from exotic birds lay scattered in a menagerie of organized chaos as the Elders organized their magic and practiced their Onmyoujutsu. He hid behind an oaken desk when he heard footsteps approached, holding his breath in anticipation. The footsteps stopped nearby, and Satoshi’s heartbeat pulsed in his throat.

Then, for a few agonizing seconds, the silence dwelt, pregnant with the danger of being discovered. Satoshi continued to hold onto his breath, daring not to take a breath out of turn. However, to his immense relief, the footsteps retracted, and Satoshi gleefully began to explore the Elder’s offices for the supplies that he might need to summon a shikigami. He got a rather thick tome on summoning, which he prepared for by reciting the simulation in his mind over and over again how the ritual would go, from the materials that he would place and the ash and chalk he would use for the pentacle.

He even knew some spells to defend himself with to practice against if he summoned a demon, which some small part of him worried about, but Satoshi believed in being prepared so, he needed to have some spells to defend himself against a demon, should one appear from the portal of the Otherworld where the shikigami also dwell.

He gathered up the needed ingredients (chalk, ash, rowan wood, newt’s eyes, elderberries, holly, an elixir he brewed himself with the right measurements of chemicals) and took the book back to his mansion, where he hid in his room and started to tremble with anticipation. Every hair stood up on his fair skin, prickling with an electrical thrum and tnesion that meant he was foredained for this day.

No one would disturb him—he successfully infiltrated the Elder’s House for the ingredients that he needed with careful preparations around the scheduling of the Elder’s meetings and his mother’s duty Head of the Hiroyuki clan. Satoshi licked his chapped lips, wetting them, and then pressed his lips together as he narrowed his eyes toward a particular line of text.

“Summoning a shikigami,” Satoshi mused to himself, putting a finger to his lip while he started to create markings on the floor to open a summoning portal. “Um…first you need to make these, then…a binding spell…and then the summoning invocation. It went something like…”

He took a deep breath when he finished the summoning circle, then clapped his hands together. “O creature of the Otherworld, heed my words. Within this summoning circle, we shall make a contract. As a shikigami, you are bound to an Onmyouji’s will--you shall stay by your Master’s side until he takes his final breath and his soul is departed from the physical realm--and until then, you shall be sent back to the Otherworld, where--“

An eruption of light exploded from the summoning circle, causing Satoshi to leap out of way, stumbling onto the seat of his pants. The candles and incense lit among the summoning circle cast eerie, carnival-like shadows across the room, the flames leaning to the east on their wicks. A shadowy aura materialized from the summoning circle--a nightmarish homunculi of some sort that barely resembled a human. When its leering red eyes stared at Satoshi, Satoshi sensed all the hatred and malice that humankind ever bore throughout the centuries.

A growl rumbled in its throat. It stalked closer, clawed hands opening and closing. Satoshi noticed how very sharp they were, how they could gouge and slash and maim with a single slice from the bladed claws. The nightmarish entity seemed to flicker and distort as though this particular dimension could barely contain its form, though Satoshi didn’t want to test the solidity or reality of such a creature. Its slaws looked very sharp and menacing, very real, and could leave a gash in his throat and leave him bleeding on his own bedroom floor.

His voice caught in his throat. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t think. There was nothing but uncontrollable hatred and unchained anger that wished to destroy everything from existence. Satoshi could only stare, transfixed at the sight of the inhuman thing that represented the darkest will of humanity. He couldn’t even breathe, as the demon glanced towards him, red eyes glaring. Satoshi toppled backwards, trying to scoot away from the monster which hurtled at him with astonishing speed. The demon clasped Satoshi by the ankle, and the young Onmyouji let out a cry as the demon’s touch branded him, leaving curse marks encrypted on his pale skin, black in stark relief.

The demon’s clawed hand then struck towards his throat, strangling him and lifting the young boy off the floor. Satoshi struggled and flailed, though the demon’s grip was relentless as Satoshi struggled to choke in a lungful of air. Everything started to fade, and the demon seemed to recede away from Satoshi’s warped vision. Satoshi’s arms slackened and fell limp at his sides when the demon choked the life out of him.

“Let go of my son, you infernal creature!”

Satoshi could barely register his mother’s voice, as the blood pounded thickly in his ears nad his heart pulsed and pounded. The demon cut the breaeth from him, threatening to take his life.

There was a sharp slice of wind that slashed at the demon, though the corruption surrounding it started to fester and regenerate, before spreading towards Satoshi. The tendrils of corruption and malice writhed like snakes and burned and seared into Satoshi’s skin, leaving more markings in its wake.

Akiko made her way to the demon, green eyes flashing in anger. She used a spell tag to invoke the presence of her shikigami, which took on the form of a beautiful yet ferocious white tiger. It opened its great maw and let out a terrifying roar that shook the Hiroyuki mansion in its foundations, before it leapt towards the demon and fangs sank deep into its corruptive flesh, if you could even call it that. The demon roared in anger, pain, and unchained rage as its grip loosened around Satoshi’s throat and dropped the boy none too kindly on the floor, who immediately scrambled away and gasped for breath, retreating into the arms of his mother.

While Akiko’s shikigami handled the demon, Akiko then took out another spell tag, this one a binding enchantment to slap onto the demon to keep it still. The tiger growled as its teeth sunk deeper into the demon’s neck, where the corruption of its body started to writhe in futility, trying to poison the tiger with its touch like it had with Satoshi. Though the shikigami was a bright, shining soul of purity that wasn’t affected by the demon’s malice, and Akiko uttered a spell to obliterate the demon from existence, a Buddhic mantra that was the sweetest song in the world to Satoshi’s ears.

A bright flash of light swallowed it whole, and then the demon was no more.

Satoshi crumpled against his mother, tears tracking down his face. His mother wordlessly noted the surroundings, taking care to clean up the portal that Satoshi used to summon the demon from the Otherworld into his room. She encrypted more tags into the area, putting the cardnial directions on the four corners of his room to seal it shut and to prevent other presences from entering within. Satoshi’s eyes glazed over, before his face fell with shame.

Satoshi trembled and clutched against his mother, trying to seek comfort. However, he found himself cruelly ripped away from his mother when the Hiroyuki Elder who forewarned him of this grasped him by the neck and stabbed two fingers to his forehead, ready to incant a spell to eliminate him. He yelped in surprise, before tears started running down his face. Satoshi’s tears came from the fact that he caused his mother so much trouble, and now something was happening deep inside him, struggling to awaken into full consciousness. The malice of centuries started to build inside him, burning with a deep red anger that threatened to overtake everything.

“You’ve done a foolish thing, boy,” the Hiroyuki Elder said as his fingers stabbed deeper into Satoshi’s forehead. “I should eliminate you right on the spot, though better judgment tells me that Lady Akiko will oppose the idea. Hold still.”

Satoshi held still, before the man started to utter an incantation which started to cause the markings on Satoshi’s body to recede. Once the procedure was finished, the man let go of Satoshi, letting him drop to the floor panting and crying.

“There will be a meeting about this,” the Hiroyuki Elder informed Akiko and Satoshi. “We will discuss what happens after.”

With that, the Elder left the room, leaving Satoshi alone in the room with his mother.

His mother turned away from him. Somehow, this disappointment spoke volumes of hurt more than anything the Elder could’ve done to him, even if it meant ripping his life away. Satoshi wanted to drink into the ground, into the grass and dirt and become one with the soil and sink where bones and graves and crawling critters resided, because that was what he deserved. He was lowlier than a worm—perhaps in his next reincarnation, he would have a better chance at redeeming himself. Nothing could make up for his shame, his humiliation, all done by his own hand, believing in himself to being good enough to be like his father and to summon a shikigami to present toward the Elders.

Dreams of going on an adventure and chasing after his father seemed out of reach now. And his mother, the only ally he possibly had, couldn’t look at him. The mother who gazed at him with such adoration and love, the one who gave him everything.

Silence drifted between them.

“M-Mother…” Satoshi said in a very small voice.

Akiko glanced toward Satoshi, before she shook her head solemnly.

“I did something wrong,” Satoshi said while bowing his head.

Akiko remained silent a few moments further, before she said. “I failed you as a mother. You are a child, still inexperienced of the ways of the world. But perhaps I shouldn’t have filled your head with such dreams and ambition of being like your father.”

Satoshi bowed his head.

“I’m not good enough to be like him…is that it?”

Akiko faced him, before she pressed both of her hands against his cheeks. “Do not take it to be that way, Satoshi-kun. Kohryu Hiroyuki is his own individual person on his own journey, or perhaps it has ended. You are your own individual person, and your journey has still yet to be done. Let the shame of this incident drive you to work hard and never repeat it again.”

Satoshi continued to cry. Tears trekked down his cheeks, and they wouldn’t stop no matter how hard he tried. Akiko enfolded him into the warm embrace of her arms, long black hair draping around him in a veil, the sleeves of her kimono brushing against him. Satoshi soaked her silk kimono with his tears.

“I thought I could…I could do it,” Satoshi murmured, hiccuping a little.

Akiko rubbed his back in comforting circles.

“Hush now. I don’t mean to scare you, Satoshi-kun, but it’s very important that you do not lapse into self pity and leg negative emotions build within you. The demon’s presence left a powerful impact on you, especially since you’re of an impressionable age.”

Satoshi stared at her with owlish eyes, before Akiko parted away and looked at him sadly.

“The demon has cursed you, my beloved,” Akiko said, a choking sob in her voice.

“A curse? Me? But… what…does that mean?”

“One day,” Akiko said. “I hope that this day doesn’t come to pass. But one day…you will become a demon.”

Satoshi gaped at her in shock.

Akiko wiped at her eyes with her sleeve.

“I do not wish to slay my own son. You are the only one I have left, after all. Though…I have to raise you very carefully, and keep you confined in the clan’s village until you’re old enough to wander in the world on your own, in exile.”

Satoshi continued to gawk, as the finality of the situation started to press on his shoulders.

Akiko pressed her hands against her face, as she let out a wail.

“I did not wish this fate upon my son!” she shouted, as though she were calling upon a cruel and callous God that was watching indifferently to the entire situation. “Oh cruel Fates…if only…”

Akiko fell silent. Satoshi remained quiet, unable to breathe. The room began to reel.

“The Elder’s will inevitably vote for your exile,” Akiko said. “But I can delay the time that you are sent off into the world. I will train you, harder than ever. I will instill all the necessary lessons that you need to become a good and virtuous person. And you must make a promise with me, Satoshi.”

Satoshi nodded, unable to speak.

“Never give into the curse,” Akiko said.

Satoshi wiped at his face with his sleeve, before whispering. “Mother…what do I do?”

Akiko thought for a moment, before saying, “I will do what I can to protect you, my love. But there will be a time when I can no longer protect you, and you will be off into the wide open world. Your sheltered world of childhood and luxury is past.”

She played with a few strands of her hair before she looked vacantly toward the corner of the room. The tiger prowled throughout the room, snuffling Satoshi for a few moments, before curling up against him. Satoshi snuggled up against his mother’s shikigami, feeling warmth and comfort in her shikigami’s presence, and Akiko, with wary eyes, started to settle against her shikigami next to Satoshi and hold Satoshi in her arms. They lay against one another for a few moments, quietly breathing.