Chapter Text
In the amber-gold glow of candlelight, the hut looked almost quaint.
Almost, if you counted out the half-dead pigeon beating weak wings on the wicker mat, the silver goblets brimming with viscous blood, the sticks and sticks of garlic incense burning quietly in every corner of the room, filling it with a near-unbearable stench.
Hiyori gave her companion a sidelong glance. A teenager five or so years younger than her, rail-thin, lank blond hair flopping over his forehead. She was impressed with him already, despite the briefness of their acquaintance: most villagers would’ve run for the hills by this point. It took a brave (or desperate) kid to stand so long in the same room with her, let alone offer to help.
“It’s sundown.” She prompted, noting the violet hue of the sky from the window. “It’ll be good to start now.”
The boy cringed. His honey-coloured eyes flicked from the struggling pigeon to the brassy shackles in his hands, and he swallowed a lump in his throat. “Y-yeah! Yeah, let’s do it. I’m ready!”
“I...won’t let you get hurt.” Hiyori channelled her grandmother, trying to keep her voice gentle, her touch soothing. “If you do what I say to the word, nothing bad will happen. I promise.”
“I know.” His tone was a touch defensive. “I trust you, that’s why I’m here.”
She smiled a thin smile. She would be flattered by his vote of confidence, if they’d known each other for longer than a day.
“Good to hear. Shall we recap the instructions?”
Hiyori wasn’t used to taking cases like Yukine’s. Her grandmother had, back when she’d practiced, but then she’d been an experienced sorceress, taught and mentored by the greatest in the arts. Hiyori didn’t have half the exposure the old woman had had at her age; she was a sheltered child, a pale replacement for a miracle-worker.
She could handle the summoning of spirits for normal requests: murders, good luck, fortune-telling, easy as pie. To hold onto her reputation, she turned away any requests she wasn’t comfortable with. Yukine would’ve been no exception (what he was asking for was rash, irrational, glaringly risky), if only he hadn’t looked so bedraggled. Hopeless, afraid, desperate, begging her for aid on her doorstep…
...and he’d offered to help. A first, in even her grandmother’s books.
“So, to begin.” She pitched her voice low, as if whispering a secret. “When the demon arrives in the circle, he’s going to go straight for either the blood or the pigeon. They’re starving beings, and always thirsty, so we can count on that. We have a window of maybe three minutes before he notices us.” She paused. “You remember how to use those shackles, right?”
“Yes.” The chains in his hands gleamed gold in the candlelight.
“Good. Just...wanted to make sure. And, you ate those cloves of garlic I gave you?”
He gave her a withering look. “Yes, Hiyori-san. In front of you.”
“Right. Right, so that’ll keep you mostly invisible to him. They prioritise their sense of smell, so garlic is disorienting to them. Still, their eyesight isn’t too bad, so don’t make any sudden movements. Sneak up behind him, slow and steady, and upon my signal, shackle his wrists like we practiced. I’ll handle the rest. Got it?”
She was fully aware she had given this boy the most dangerous task in the checklist. It was cowardly of her, she knew, but in her defence, she was taking his case free of charge, and he was going to be the main beneficiary of this whole ordeal, so-
“Yep.” The boy jiggled his foot, impatient. “Can we start yet?”
Hiyori bit her lip. God, this was a bad idea. Demons made her nervous. They were vicious beings, always thirsty, always starving for flesh, possessing both the cunning and brute force to get their way. It was a pity they were as useful as they were.
If it hadn’t been for Yukine’s desperation…
“Let’s start.” Hiyori unrolled the crumbling parchment in her hands scrawled with her grandmother’s large, looping script. “Don’t interrupt me.”
Grandmother’s scroll, predictably, was written in the tongue of demons. The brunette squinted at it, licking her lips. Unlike most other unearthly tongues, demonic speech had a strangely lovely sound. It filled her mouth with o’s and i’s, like she was chanting a poem about floating in midair. Smooth, silky, addictive to use.
She clucked her tongue, her eyes sweeping over the words on the page.
Yaboku. Of her grandmother’s extensive collection, she had chosen the demon Yaboku, the night-diviner, a spectre of bloodlust who delighted in combat, murders and massacres. An unusual choice, for Yukine’s predicament in particular, but the only choice they could make.
Because, etched in the footnotes of his scroll in a hurried, near-illegible scribble, was a torture incantation made especially for him.
Hiyori cleared her throat. “Arise, Demon Yaboku, from the depths of hell, to serve at my command.”
The effect of the demonic words was immediate. There was, abruptly, a haze of smoke around the circle of blood-cups, the musty tang of salty air. Bits of coal-dust floated about, sourceless, flaking onto the wicker mat.
“Arise, I command, and set your foot upon the Earth.” She went on, and a whiff of smoke puffed by, as tangible as one from the end of a pipe. The smell of garlic, which had hung about the hut like a shroud, began to waver, interrupted by gusts of a thickly sweet scent that reminded her of real incense.
Yukine, beside her, tensed, sensing a change in the atmosphere.
“Arise, demon, and bend the world to my will.”
She needed to be careful. Swift, careful and faultless, as her grandmother expected her to be.
There was a shape there, squatted over the pigeon. An oily shadow, its darkness swirling, a wisp of an entity. The pigeon, which had so far been in a drugged haze, cooed, slapping its wings heavily against the mat. It knocked over a cup of blood, inky fluid rolling over the wooden floor in a line towards her feet.
Yukine held the shackles ready in his hands. He paced around the being, slowly, prowling like a tiger. Hiyori felt a twang of admiration for him, considering she herself had become frozen in place, her heart thudding loudly in her ears.
She took a deep breath. If worse came to worst, she would at least make sure he had enough time to flee.
Her hands wrapped around the brass coin in her palm. Five yen, the smallest amount she could find at short notice. Supernatural spirits didn’t care about money, they cared about payment, and Hiyori was determined to pay as little as possible if she was to make this her profession.
She counted off in her head, three, two, one, and tossed the coin in a clean arc into the middle of the circle of cups.
“Demon Yaboku, I pay my dues to welcome you into my home.”
And, with that, there he was.
Hiyori took a step back, unable to tear her gaze away from the boy (demon) lounging on the floor of her hut. Dark-haired, with long pale limbs that folded into each other, the demon wore a loose yukata, his head propped up on his fist as he traced an apathetic pattern by his crossed feet.
He looked up, a moment later, and treated her to a flash of white teeth.
“Is this the best you’ve got?” Demon-tongue, his native tongue, wafted past like a blown breath. “Old blood and a dead pigeon?”
He was calm, horribly calm, with eyes blue as a summer sky. Not a muscle twitched as he looked around, he might as well be a random human stranger who’d wandered into her hut by accident, if not for the dagger-sharp canines that poked past his lips.
“Y-Yaboku.” Curse her chattering teeth. “D-demon Ya-boku-”
“Do you not speak my language?” He interjected.
The sudden switch to human tongue jarred her. Hiyori gaped at him, goosebumps rising on her arms. How did he even know human speech-?
Yaboku, the blue-eyed, dark-haired harbinger of war, peered at her through a curtain of overlong bangs. “No? Do you speak at all?” He seemed, momentarily, to lose interest in her, slipping his slim, long-fingered hands under the shivering pigeon. “You know, I may be a cheap demon, but the least you could do is get me fresh blood. This is just disrespectful.”
Was he a demon at all?
From what her grandmother had told her, from what she’d witnessed at communes and rituals past, demons were supposed to take anything you gave them. They weren’t picky, they were famished, and they most definitely didn’t have the composure to make conversation. Had she made a mistake?
“L-Lord Yaboku, I’ve summoned you b-because-”
“Lord Yaboku?” The fiend smirked, a flash of fangs behind his soft pink lips. “I like that. Am I the lord of something, in your little scroll there?”
She had no words. This couldn't be a demon. She had to have picked up the wrong scroll. Grandmother didn’t normally make mistakes, but who knew, maybe this was the only one.
“Well?” He cradled the pigeon in his hands, eyeing it distastefully. “Ugh. Honestly, I should reject you now and go back home, we have better offerings in hell. Look at this thing, it could give me a stomachache.”
“N-no!” She felt a rush of panic. If she was rejected, her grandmother would find out, and she would never be able to live that down- “No, please don’t go. I’ve summoned you here to help a young child-”
“Spare me.” He tossed the pigeon over his shoulder. It landed with a squawk, narrowly missing the lightfooted Yukine by a couple inches. “Young children shouldn’t be allowed to ask for murders, there should be some sort of age limit to summon demons.”
“It’s nothing like that.” She watched as he relaxed a bit, swirling a cup of clotted blood idly with the tip of his finger. The blond teenager stood behind him, cloaked in garlic and stillness, waiting at ready. “He isn’t asking for murder or chaos. It’s a simple task, really.” She paused a moment. “Will you accept, if I get you a better offering?”
“Well…” The demon tapped his chin thoughtfully, pouting. “I think I’d like some human food. Something cooked, maybe. Pig? Do you still eat pig? And you don’t have to fear me, so get rid of the garlic stink, would you?”
“Of course.” She just needed him to accept her, one yes would do- “But will you fulfill my commands, if I do?”
He raised his eyebrows. His head tipped back, a slow, wry smile on his lips. “What else am I here for?”
That was good enough, wasn’t it? “Yes, Lord Yaboku.” She tilted her head down in a sharp jerk of a nod. “We do indeed eat pig.”
Yaboku’s eyes brightened, just as Yukine roared his war cry.
It was astonishingly easy, it turned out, to pounce on an unearthly demonic warrior when one had the element of surprise. The blond boy leapt onto him, feral, pinning him down as he yanked his hands behind him. The demon shrieked, knocking over multiple silver goblets as he crashed to the ground.
“Listen up, Yaboku! I’m your new master, I’ve summoned you!” The blond boy cried, fastening the shackles around the demon’s skeletal wrists. “You’re going to come with me, and you’re going to protect me, you’re going to do as I say-”
“Not again.” Yaboku groaned, his pale face stained crimson by spilt blood. “Why is it always me-”
“Listen to me!” Yukine bellowed, annoyed. “You...you’re going to come with me to see my sister, and you’re going to protect me the whole way from my father and everyone else in this shitty town-”
“The shackles compel you to obey.” Hiyori added helpfully. “They’re charmed against demons.”
“I know.” The demon spat. “I know all about those damned things-”
“I command you. I command you to protect me.” The boy sat on the fiend’s back, pushing him to the ground as he crowed. “And don’t try any funny business, because Hiyori also knows torture spells to keep you in line!”
Yaboku went silent. He didn’t fight the shackles, he barely moved to dislodge the teenager on his back. Instead, the demon, the otherworldly spectre from a hellish land, with the teeth of a vampire and the appetite of a shrew, pressed his cheek tiredly against the rough wicker mat on the floor.
“Just my luck.” He muttered under his breath, as his tongue darted out to get a lick of the dark spilled blood pooling under him.