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The day Lord Todoroki’s firstborn came into the world, a curse befell his land. Lightning tore up the clear sky, demons crawled out of it, and a baby wailed his first cry.
The pact was sealed.
Devils would roam the earth freely, but no samurai army would taint the Lord’s rice fields with blood. The region would prosper. He would be the greatest ruler of his era. His newborn’s sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain, if devouring him alive would sate the demons’ hunger long enough to bring peace.
The baby was left wailing until his voice died out, but not even the love of a mother could ease his pain. He could not hear nor see, for he had no ears or eyes. In their place, gaping holes adorned a skinless face. A monster, the midwife cried when she saw him, bolting out of Lady Rei’s chambers.
A monster, the Lord agreed, eyeing it like it was one of the fiends he’d summoned. He had no affections for that thing once it had served its purpose. Averting his eyes from the gruesome malformations, he ordered a servant to abandon it in a river.
His second son could be his heir.
The boy survived. Against all odds, his will to live was stronger than his father’s hatred for it.
An artisan picked him up from the river and gave him a home. He carved limbs for him out of wood and comfort words out of love. The boy still couldn’t hear or see like a normal person, but he could perceive people’s souls. The artisan’s was a silhouette of pure white against the enveloping darkness.
One day, the man traced two characters on the dirt with a stick and put the boy’s hand on top of it to feel it. Touya. That was his name. The one thing his cruel father couldn’t take away from him.
The monster became a person again.
Touya was twelve when he came across his first demon. It was a looming figure, blooming red before his sightless glass eyes. Touya had just been learning how to wield a practice sword. He didn’t hesitate. His dulled blade struck it with the fury he couldn’t express through words. You have something of mine, he thought, feeling phantom tears he had no eyes to shed. Give it back.
He hadn’t thought it would. Not until he started convulsing, and one of his wooden legs fell out, replaced by bones, muscles and skin.
Touya understood then, what he had to do. The kind artisan's place couldn't be his home anymore. Touya’s path was one of blood. A lonely existence spent in deafening silence.
Until Keigo.
Touya had lived twenty-two years in pitch darkness when he met him. Another blinding white light, another gentle soul willing to walk through the eternal shadows at his side.
It happened by chance.
Touya was standing on a wooden bridge, gaze fixed on the upteenth monster up ahead. He didn’t spare a glance at the people fighting in his periphery, mind set on the task at hand. Peeling off his prosthetic arms with his teeth, he freed the twin blades underneath.
The creature was approaching fast. Touya wouldn't let it escape. He wasted no time before cutting into the supporting beams of the bridge to set out his trap.
As if seeing through his plan, the sludge demon attacked. Its oozing appendage hit the pillar at Touya’s left. The wood splintered and broke under the force of the hit, but Touya dodged one, twice, ten times. His body moved on its own, lunging at the monster to keep its attention on him as the old planks fell apart around them.
The bridge collapsed with a final rumble. Trapped, the creature trashed, almost making the river overflow. Touya lunged again, this time at its head. It gave one last cry before dissolving.
Chest heaving, Touya reached the riverside. His blades were still dripping when pain shot up the sides of his face. He fell to his knees, clutching his head. Two pieces of wood fell out, and the world exploded into noise. Twigs cracked beneath his knees. Birds screeched. People shouted and hastily retreated. Wind carried the leaves in a maddening rustle. The roaring water flowed past the debris.
It was too much.
Someone knelt in front of him, arms extended and deep voice frantic. To Touya, it was just another silhouette, another faceless soul blending in the background of his journey. Another noise adding to the ringing in his ears.
Touya passed out in his arms, overwhelmed by the tumult exploding in his new ears.
He awoke sometime later to gentle singing.
The sun had set. Touya wasn’t by the river anymore. Instead, he was lying on someone’s lap. His wounds had been tended to and there was a hand running through his hair comfortingly. The world was still overwhelmingly loud, but this song, the man's deep and melodious voice—it didn't hurt.
It’s like a little bird, Touya’s exhausted mind supplied stupidly.
The comparison flooded him with shame. He had no way of knowing what a real bird sounded like. And the hand halting its movements on his scalp was definitely human.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
The song ended abruptly, replaced by an onslaught of less nice sounds Touya didn’t understand.
“Took you long enough. I was starting to get worried. Thanks for saving me from those brutes, by the way,” the voice continued, not waiting for a response. “I bit off more than I could chew, trying to scam them. It's a shame I lost the goods though. Stealing them was so much trouble!”
Touya stared at his blinding silhouette. It was one of the men from the river. Touya had barely paid them any mind, but the man had cured his injuries for some reason.
“Anyway, I’m Keigo. What’s your name?”
Touya was used to being unable to say thank you. Used to being alone.
What he wasn’t used to was the longing deep in his chest, asking for that sweet melody to resume its comfort.
Against Touya’s predictions, Keigo stayed. One day bled into two, three, until it became clear Keigo would keep following him around. Just like that, the monotony of Touya’s life was interrupted by constant chatter.
“So you can’t see, but you still fight like that? That’s a skill we can use, my friend. Wait, you can’t answer me either, can you? Gaaah.”
Touya grew used to Keigo’s voice and to his presence. It would only be a matter of time before he left too, but the color of Keigo’s soul told him he was no threat. That was enough for Touya to let him be.
Perhaps, a part of him just longed not to be lonely anymore.
And so they wandered, ridding villages of demons in exchange for money and a warm meal. They shared vulnerabilities around a bonfire. They fought. They lost. They traveled.
Keigo’s ramblings filled Touya's days and his swift hands tended to Touya’s wounds without question. With each passing month Touya regained more body parts, and with them what it meant to be human. He longed for his fingers to touch, for his arms to hold. He wanted to know the color of Keigo’s eyes. The look on his face when he laughed. The smell of his hair and the heat on his cheeks under Touya’s palms.
Touya had already lost twenty-two years. How much longer would he have to wait until he could just live?
Every minute seemed to count when he had Keigo at his side and no way to tell when they’d part. He wanted to feel the warmth next to his as they laid down for the night.
He wanted to be a person, not a doll. And the more he yearned, the quicker his blades became. The harsher they got and the more blood they spilled, until demons were no longer Touya’s only prey. He would kill everyone who got in his way.
So he faced monster after monster until the most cruel of them all waited for them at the Asakura Border, an army at his heels.
Todoroki Enji.
It was then that Touya learned the truth. If he wanted his body back, Touya was to doom his father’s land, for the only thing keeping it prosperous was the pact with the demons. Famine, poverty, and wars had already stopped sparing those hills since the beginning of Touya’s journey. Thousands of villagers would keep starving, hundreds more would perish under the blades of the neighboring clan.
They were here to put a stop to that—to Touya.
Only then did it dawn on him. There was no one to come home to. His family rejected him, casted him out for the sake of a cushioned life. They brought an army to face a single man, because in his father’s eyes, Touya was the most dangerous of all demons: one he couldn’t bend to his will.
“That’s so cruel!” Keigo yelled, pulled back by two samurai twice his size. “How could you do that to your son? You have no idea what he had to go through!”
“Stand back,” Touya told him. His father’s silhouette was dotted with red, and it was as simple as that.
No one had missed Touya, but thousands would let him be devoured by demons in their stead again.
Touya would let them all die too.
Grief was a complicated feeling.
Touya had spent his whole life counting his losses. He couldn’t remember the love of a mother or the pride of a father. All he’d known was that he was lacking, and souls were a fickle thing. It was easy to let the darkness pull you in when you didn’t know any light.
It was different for Keigo. He’d been old enough when he lost his parents to still grieve for them.
“My father was a thief,” he told Touya that night. “He stole from the samurai to build a future for the war orphans, and he died for it. Backstabbed. The samurai bribed one of his men to do it. In exchange for a place amongst them, no less.”
Touya knew what it was like to let ambition cloud your judgement. During his journey, he’d been on the verge of tainting his soul more times than he could count. You forgot the value of life when you were asked to kill every day to earn yours.
“My mother didn’t live much longer. She starved herself to feed me,” Keigo continued, an edge of old pain seeping into his voice. His head ducked. “Maybe what my father did wasn’t right, but he dreamed big. He fought for a piece of fertile land free of wars and famine. I want that too. I want to reclaim everything the samurai took from us.”
Touya nodded, understanding dawning on him. “We are the same.”
Keigo’s grief was so different from his own, and yet so similar. It confirmed something Touya had known to be true for a long time.
Family wasn’t always bound by blood. The kind artisan had saved Touya’s life, and Keigo had rescued his mind. And Touya's existence had been lacking in a lot of things, but never love.
“If you want to survive in this world, you have to take back what matters to you,” Keigo concluded, cupping Touya’s face in his hands.
It’s why I followed you. It’s why I’ll keep following you, he didn’t say.
He didn’t need to. Touya knew better than anyone that humanity wasn’t defined by ambition. His father had spent his existence hoarding wealth, and he was no better for it.
Touya placed his forehead against Keigo’s. The single point of contact told him he was alive.
What made people human was knowing loss, and still yearning for a better future.