Chapter Ten
A pale moon shone in the sky, casting its blue light over everything around it. The street, empty of sound and visitors, was now receiving peculiar guests whose audacity was something to behold—they had the nerve to disturb its quiet atmosphere. The sound of a working laser filled the air, along with a kind of loud whispering in children's voices:
"Faster, faster…" A girl with strange yellow slime ready in her palms spoke with obvious displeasure. "Someone's going to notice us!"
"Who's going to notice, dummy…" A boy of about thirteen slowly drew a circle his own height in the glass surface with his index finger, a thin beam of green laser cutting from it. "It's the middle of the night!"
Wrinkles appeared on the girl's forehead—she looked only slightly younger than her companion—as she frowned and puffed her cheeks out in an amusing way. Standing behind her relative, she wanted to give him a good smack on the back of the head, but couldn't—her hands were occupied with her Quirk. All she could do was bore a furious gaze into the back of his grey-haired head.
Then, suddenly, the girl flinched. She heard the distant echo of shoes striking stone on the narrow street. Turning her head in that direction, she stared with fear-widened eyes at the empty turn leading to another alley, helped in her vigil by the soft glow of a tall streetlamp. She immediately jabbed the boy in the shoulder, seizing his furious attention and forcing him to pause his important work of engineering unauthorized entry into a closed shop. He turned to his sister, whose palms were now clean, and had already prepared to start complaining—but something stopped him. He heard them too: footsteps in shoes, growing closer. Freezing for a moment, the teenager grabbed the girl's hand and spoke in a voice gone husky with fear:
"We're out of here, Asemi!" There was no need to say it twice.
They bolted immediately, crossing the street in a matter of seconds and swinging around to the side completely opposite from their unexpected visitor. The scene that met them there made them skid to a hard stop. Standing beneath the beam of a street lamp was a fairly short figure of what appeared to be an adult. Or not entirely an adult.
It was impossible to say with certainty whether this was a man or a woman—the voluminous old European-style coat concealed everything but a slender silhouette beneath it. The face was rather feminine and simultaneously unsettling: skin of extreme pallor marked with strange yellow-green patterns. Eyes the color of teal that glowed even in the nighttime darkness—even against the backdrop of the streetlamp—with strange, flickering inclusions that inspired an inexplicable dread.
In one eye was a single dash. In the other, in kanji, the number one. A dreamy smile played on those terrifyingly pale lips as narrowed eyes gazed directly at the children. They felt an incredible pressure settle onto their shoulders, one that left them unable not only to move, but even to breathe evenly. The teeth of both children chattered in the mounting atmosphere.
"Now, now, there's no need to be so afraid of me~." The monster's sweet, soothing voice left its lips in something almost like a song, and all across its face large veins swelled threateningly while the expression itself did not change in the slightest. "Better tell me instead… can theft be considered villainy?"
This was Doma. A disguised Doma. He had chosen the rather amusing and ironic appearance of his dear companion—the First Lower Moon, Enmu. He now matched that figure in ability as well, and these "friends" shared certain traits of character besides. Though the First Lower Moon had never been the least bit shy about acknowledging his sadistic inclinations.
He was in some deliberation. In his youth, something like this at a first offense could have earned a severe punishment and three special marks burned into the hands, declaring clearly that their bearer was a thief. A second offense meant death—though the law had softened its measures of punishment over time. But this was an entirely different era, an absolutely distinct world, and different customs and norms might hold sway here. The central question of the evening was: to eat or not to eat? It all depended on the answer these children gave—killing villains was nothing to be ashamed of, so Doma had decided.
Gathering a measure of courage, the boy stepped forward and shielded his relative, spreading his trembling arms out to either side. In a voice quavering with desperation he said:
"D-don't touch her!" Remarkably, the boy managed to partially suppress through sheer will the passive aura of such a powerful demon bearing down on him, and spoke again in a more confident tone—frightened, still, but steadier. "We're not villains! We needed the money!"
"But the ones you wanted to steal from might have needed it too." The creature swung its arm—knuckles swollen with bulging welts—out to the side, displaying on its back a gaping maw that had opened in the skin, a row of white teeth and an eager tongue that impatiently lapped the flesh around its "mouth." A very bad sign.
The pair flinched and froze again for a moment in terror. The girl seemed to shrink, becoming nearly invisible behind her elder brother's back. She was very, very frightened. She had not abandoned hope that there was a way out of this situation. The threat seemed only to ignite the boy, who even stepped forward.
"I wasn't going to take everything!" He tried to focus all of the horrible creature's attention on himself. "We only needed a little—for food and medicine!"
"But theft is theft…" The arguments appeared to do nothing to persuade the demon. The boy clenched his teeth, bracing for the worst. "But you were in some genuine need—and I am, after all, a kind demon!"
Both children went completely white when they heard the words of the oni standing before them. A real demon? Was that the name of his Quirk, or was he an actual demon?! These thoughts raced through their minds until the creature appeared directly beside the boy, seized his hand, and jerked it upward—hooking its own finger, bearing a very sharp nail, around the boy's raised index finger.
"You cut the glass with this finger, didn't you?" It asked, smiling sweetly and half-closing its unsettling eyes. But it had no need of an answer. "Didn't you~."
There was a crunch and a crack, and the indicated part of the hand was wrenched free at the root. The reality of what had happened reached the two children with a delay—they stared for a moment with open mouths and wide eyes at the scene. In the next half second the boy let out a mad howl, and the girl covered her mouth with both hands in shock, no longer looking at the one who had started all of this.
The victim of the cruelty crumpled to the ground, clutching at the stump, while the girl stood motionless beside him, silent, not knowing what to do.
"This is your punishment for the crime you committed." The creature said with a mournful air and tossed the "meal" into its mouth, replacing its smile with a sad one as the boy whimpered and wept quietly. "I don't like to see anyone suffer, so please—be more careful next time."
The madman vanished, leaving behind nothing but two children in a panic.