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The magatama is tough between his teeth. No matter how long or how hard he chews, it doesn’t break down. It threatens to break his jaw, quivering over his tongue, against the roof of his mouth, as if laughing at him. Stupid boy, it squelches and pops, but never breaks, you must earn sustenance, you must earn our gifts, the strength and wisdom to rend your enemies. Into your belly, whole. And he listens, swallowing the magatama down, aware of its shape as it slides down his throat, down his tender insides, sitting heavy in his torso, cold, like a stone.
It hums inside of him during battle, it throttles itself against his tissue and bone when he reaches - enlightenment. Burning hot inside of him, he sees the wisdom it carries, it takes shape in the stretch and pull of his muscles, in the sudden space that exists in his lungs where fire and ice wait and breathe, and wait to be released.
And then there are the stingers, shocking like jellyfish prickers, stunning his body from the inside, toxins releasing into his blood. A curse, the Lady of the Fountain calls it. A curse she can cure - for a price.
The junk shop sells a magatama and claims it looks too much like a beetle and for a split second it skitters and shines in the palm of his hand before going dormant, waiting to be fed - on carnage, bloodshed, fury.
Hijiri asks, “Are you used to being a demon?”
And he opens his mouth to respond - when he feels the rattling in his bones, the haunting hum of a hungry magatama, and the connection above his head dies.
Get out, he thinks, when he purchases a new one. Get out, I don’t want you anymore. It crawls along his stomach mocking him, smug and made cruel with age. His fists shake by his sides where he stands in the junk shop. He flexes every muscle in his abdomen, forcing a one way path up through his chest. His tattoos, that mark him as family and enemy to the demons around him, burst bright red.
Marogareh spills from his mouth with a force that sends it sailing over the table separating the front and back of the store. The Manikin freezes, white teeth on display.
“I’m not picking that up.”
Demi-fiend stares, no longer able to feel mortified and reaches over silently to collect it himself.
The magatama lies wet and curled up on its back, belly protected from the world.
He stuffs it unceremoniously into his bag and moves on to swallow the next.