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Chapter Text

Iwaizumi Hajime had always known that he would never leave the modest village of Kitagawa.

He accepted this fact as one of the unalterable truths of his life. He was the eldest child, the steady rock of his family; his duty was clear from the get-go, but absolutely undeniable when he looked at his flighty, unreliable siblings. Neither of the twins would ever have the right temperament for metalwork – Chika had her head too far up her own ass, and Kyoji had his head too far up the neighborhood girls’ skirts.

And Yurie...Yurie was so brilliant. She showed up every classmate and solved every problem, all while maintaining the quiet modesty that earned her the adoration of the village. She would become something, Hajime knew – if left to blossom, she’d grow beyond Kitagawa and become something extravagant. He could never ask her to bind herself to the family shoppe and give up that vibrant future.

That left him.

All in all, this arrangement was suitable. Hajime was a natural blacksmith – iron behaved like butter in his grasp, melting into perfect shapes as his steady hands did their work. The senior Iwaizumi, whose muscles had been stronger and lungs cleaner in better times, had passed the majority of his work onto his son already, tackling only the most delicate of projects as he eased into retirement.

Furthermore, Hajime enjoyed blacksmithing. With only the most grudging respect for the kingdom’s wizards, he wasn’t one for myths and magic (heh, unlike the rest of his blasted town) but he thought there was probably some truth in the old saying – “a true sword sings.” He loved the sound of metal, and a couple of times he’d caught a trace of what sounded, almost, like music. From the moment he lit the forge to the fizzle of the last dying ember, he listened vigilantly for that perfect chiming sound.

Over time, the villagers began to talk.

“And then – right when I thought the omukade had me – that dagger shot it straight through the head!”

“I honestly thought I was done for when I saw that broad sword. But this flimsy little rapier skewered him like a kebob. It practically drove itself through him, I swear.”

“And the next thing I knew, Kaori had pulled the whole cutting board down on her head! I thought that knife would cut her, for sure, but it almost seemed to, like, swerve out of the way…?”

Frankly, he had no idea what they were talking about. But it brought more people through the door, which made his father happy, so Hajime had nothing against the occasional rumors.

At least, that’s how he felt to begin with.

Kyoji coughed. “Not gonna lie – you smell gross, Aniki. Do you ever, like, get out?”

Hajime sniffed his armpit with mild concern, wrinkling his nose as he flopped back on the pile of tires. “I don’t smell anything. And of course I get out.”

“Do not. I’ve only ever seen you making deliveries and dragging scrap metal back to the shop.”

“Well, I’m out right now, aren’t I?” he muttered, glaring at the gilded Kitagawa Motor Co. sign over the back entrance. He could faintly hear the voice of Kyoji’s instructor through the door, coupled with adoring giggles from the small audience that had inevitably gathered.

“C’mon,” Kyoji pressed, “isn’t it about time you started...you know…”

“No, I don’t know...”

“Uh, getting around? Sowing your wild oats? Roaming with the –”

“– stop, stop, stop.” Hajime groaned, punching his brother’s shoulder. “You’re the gross one. I have no intentions of doing any ‘oat-sowing,’ thanks. I have fun,” he added defensively.

“Sure you do, Aniki. Look, I’m not saying you should go demon-hunting or aeroplaning or anything.” Kyoji sighed lightly. “But it’s your life, Aniki. Do something for yourself for once, will you?”

Hajime bit down a pang of bitterness as he regarded his brother. Machinery, of any kind, was absolute novelty, afforded only by military status or extreme wealth; those associated with the upkeep and service of such luxuries were regarded with a sort of awe by the general public. Everyone at Kyoji’s workshop was showered with attention from beautiful ladies and admiring gents – it was a life Hajime could hardly blame his brother for choosing.

But, in the end, none of those courtships would come to fruition. No gentlewoman would soil her gloves with the hands of an oily mechanic – or a grimy blacksmith, for that matter. Kyoji would obtain no fortune through his livelihood, nor through his marriage; thus, the eldest would have to provide.

“Someone has to keep the forge running. Better me than you, eh?” Hajime snorted. “Don’t worry, Kyo. I don’t mind it there, really. Elbow grease is what I’m good for.”

“Well…” Kyoji frowned, before a sharp bang on the door disrupted their conversation.

“Kyojiiiii! Get back out here!”

“Oh, shit, I’m over my break. Gotta go!”

And thus, in an instant, the blacksmith was left reclining in a pile of half-shredded tire rubber by himself.

Hajime didn’t get very far out the door before he encountered an unwanted hassle.

This hassle consisted of six armed battalions, maroon banners, a full military orchestra, and – by his estimate – every villager who was otherwise unoccupied. Some of the civilians had brought their own flags or noisemakers (Hajime could swear he saw the village fiddler trying to play along with the strings) and others were chanting along with the ranks:

“Stepping on the palace within the forest,
We look up and see the majestic Sendai Castle.
That is our kingdom.
Ahh, the glorious Shiratorizawa…”

“Again?” Hajime grumbled to himself. It seemed like Kitagawa was changing hands practically every month at this point. It was a nice port town with a pretty view and a notable shipyard, sure, but he sincerely doubted their little village was worth all that much. In fact, he doubted that any kingdom would use them for more than another foothold in battle.

Perhaps the villagers didn’t mind, for the most part, since they were allowed to carry on with their business and enjoy the maritime celebrations. A fine arrangement, Hajime supposed – until they’d be trampled.

Careful not to draw attention to himself, Hajime ducked behind the crowd and into an alleyway, both overwhelmed by and uninterested in the main square happenings.

“Feeling a little unpatriotic?”

Hajime froze, catching the shadow of a soldier’s cap between the narrow walls. “No, sir,” he answered in a measured voice. Slowly, he forced himself to turn around, and sized up the frustratingly taller men.

The larger of the two – clearly the senior – seemed amused, with shocking red hair poking out from under the brim of his shako, and a slightly unnerving, curl-lipped smile. Beside him stood a shorter, serious-looking man, with a prim bowl-cut and stiff posture.

“Whaddya think, Goshiki? Should we bring him in?” the older hummed.

“Lieutenant Tendou, sir! I don’t think we have the authority to do such a thing, sir!”

“Ah, you’re no fun,” he grinned. “I was just having a laugh.”

“Sir, excuse me, sir!” the younger answered. Hajime was getting the impression that Bowl-Cut Kid (Goshiki?) was a total rookie.

“Say, you look pretty strong,” the lieutenant added thoughtfully, taking a step forward and lifting Hajime’s face with a startlingly long finger. The blacksmith felt chills down his neck. “Ever thought about enlisting?”

“I…no, I haven’t,” he swallowed. He was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the lieutenant examining him, especially because his fingers were absolutely freezing, and looked almost skeletal.

“Well, it’s not too late! We can go by the office right now – you can even get an in from yours truly, your pal Satori –”

“– there you are! Were you having a chat, darling?”

Hajime felt a hand drape over one of his shoulders and tensed, just about ready to sock whoever the hell this newcomer was. Frankly, the blacksmith wasn’t sure that he could deal with one more nosy git at this point. He glared up at the stranger, instantly pissed at the man’s perfectly coiffed brown hair and obnoxiously bright and expensive cloak, and opened his mouth to tell him to fuck off –

– and ducked as two black blurs dive-bombed them from above, screeching like banshees from another dimension.

“CROWS!” the lieutenant shouted, drawing his gun alongside Goshiki. Hajime could hear the shhhshhenk of rifles from three or four streets over, and the distant thunder of feet drumming across the ground.

“We don’t want to be in the middle of this,” the stranger laughed lightly, pulling Hajime into a sprint. “They’re gonna tear each other to shreds. I’d rather be a spectator, wouldn’t you~?”

Hajime’s annoyance peaked with the teasing lilt in the stranger’s voice. “I’d rather,” he panted furiously, “be back at my goddamn job!”

“Hey, no need to get worked up over it. You could have just said so, you big brute,” the cloaked man winked. “Ahh, but it looks like we won’t get out of here in time on foot.”

“What?”

“Hold on!”

Hajime was too surprised to protest as the stranger jerked him to a halt, grabbed him by the waist, and shot them both into the air like a bullet.

“That’ll do it.”

Hajime made the mistake of looking down – the village had shrunk dizzyingly to the size of a dollhouse, rooftops no bigger than stepping stones. He couldn’t breathe.

“Easy,” the stranger murmured. “C’mon, straighten out your legs. Good! Now, start walking…”

“Holy shit I’m gonna die.”

“You’re not gonna die, Spiky-chan! Just start with a couple steps!”

Hajime grimaced, closed his eyes, and focused on moving his legs steadily. It was slight, but gradually, he began to feel as though clouds were forming under his feet, pushing up when he pushed down, light as a feather, firm as a rock.

“I’m going to let go now!”

“What?” Hajime shouted, eyes snapping open as the hands around his waist slid up to his hands. Yet the sky still seemed willing to support him, by some miracle, bobbing beneath his feet. He could see tiny people, maybe even a couple that he recognized, milling about or heading downtown. (Where were they, even? It looked, to Hajime, like he and his peculiar stranger were already a ways away from the eastern coast, even though they had only been airborne for...what, a minute?)

“You are a natural~!”

Hajime glanced up at the stranger for only the second time in their brief acquaintance. He was somewhat disgusted and somewhat captivated by his companion’s perfect composure, clear skin, and thick, curly eyelashes. Like some goddamn brown-eyed doe.

“You’d be somewhere down there in the Shoppe District, I presume?”

“I, uh – yes,” Hajime snapped awkwardly. “Two down from –”

“– the bakery?”

“Are you some creepy stalker or something?”

“Don’t tell me you believe those silly rumors, too,” the man pouted. “Boooo.”

“W-wh- then –”

“Oh! This is your smithery, then.”

Hajime landed lightly on his roof, stumbling a little when the stranger let him go.

“So clumsy, Spiky-chan~!”

“Stop calling me that, dammit!”

“Careful going out. I’d wait until nightfall – the Crows will be crawling around. Those maroon buffoons probably left their scent on you,” the stranger sniffed distastefully, “so you’re better off inside.”

“Alright. I’ll be careful,” Hajime agreed, somewhat placated.

“That’s my Spiky-chan.” And with that, the cloaked man stepped back off the roof, dropping out of sight.

“Wait –” Hajime protested, running to the edge of the shingles. The man had vanished.

“Iwaizumi Hajime, I cannot believe how careless you are!”

Hajime said nothing, tapping nervously on the ladle he was shaping, until Chika slammed her hands on his work desk.

“Okay! I’m sorry!” he dropped the ladle, holding up his hands in surrender. “I honestly had no idea –”

“– that Oikawa Tooru flew you from the main square to our balcony?!” Chika exclaimed. “Honestly, Nii-chan, how thick do you have to be to not recognize Oikawa?”

“It’s not like there’s a bounty on his head or anything,” Hajime scowled. “How was I supposed to know it was him?”

“Well, clearly everyone else did. You’re the talk of the town,” she sighed. “Do you even know what they say about Oikawa?”

“Yeah. That he outwits all the talents in the kingdom and steals their hearts and their castles,” Hajime sighed. “So I still have nothing to worry about.”

The persistent hum of the clanging metal offered no comfort for Hajime’s growing sense of uneasiness.

“Like a thorn,” he grumbled to the soon-to-be-ice pick in his thickly gloved hands. “Wedge like a thorn, sting like a wasp, split like a thunderbolt.”

The edge of the pick shuddered with his next hit.

“Wedge like a thorn, sting like a wasp…”

“Mmh. So this is the studio of the famously talented Iwaizumi.”

Hajime wiped his brow, setting the pick aside to address whoever had come through the door. He’d left the wooden door open to let a breeze through the shoppe, but he could have sworn he locked the screen door – he must have forgotten.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Hajime inclined his head slightly, studying the broad, imposing man standing in the doorway. “We’re closed for the night.”

The man seemed to be ignoring him. “These works are splendid fruits,” he commented, picking up a sickle from a display shelf, “to have sprouted from such barren soil. Marvelous.”

“Er...thank you.”

“You are the same, Iwaizumi Hajime,” the man continued expressionlessly, “a truly remarkable smith, to have come from such a mediocre line of craftsmen before you. I congratulate you on your accomplishments thus far.”

“We’re closed, sir,” Hajime replied coldly.

“I heard some companions of mine took a liking to you earlier this day.”

“You need to leave.”

“Pity. You’re just like him,” the man frowned, “cutting your nose off to spite your face. Such a waste…”

It was in that moment that Hajime knew he had made a grievous error.

The Witch of Waste; Sorcerer of the Eagles; Head Warlock of Shiratorizawa. Ushijima Wakatoshi was by far the most powerful and political of wizards, in this kingdom or any kingdom. Revered as legendary, Ushijima was known primarily for two things. First: he was the unofficial ruler of the largest and most powerful kingdom; every nobleman was nothing more than a figurehead, coerced or seduced by the sorcerer’s immense power.

Second: Ushijima vehemently hated to see talent go to waste.

“Your worthless pride hinders you,” he declared solemnly. “You will be better once stripped of it.”

Hajime wasn’t entirely sure what transpired next – it seemed, to him, that the Witch of Waste had struck a staff through his body, as though his flesh were no more solid than air, and exited the shoppe without further comment. All he knew for sure was that one moment, he recognized Ushijima; the next, he was on the ground, clutching his stomach like he’d been impaled. His face and arms burned, and Hajime could swear he smelled something burning.

When the pain had finished wracking through his body, Hajime dared to hope that Ushijima had let him off easy. (And really, he wondered – why him? Why did Ushijima think he was wasting his talent, when he was performing precisely the skills he had polished for so long? Why did Shiratorizawa even want him?) Carefully, he staggered to his feet. His fingers and toes felt horribly strange, as though his hands had been split down the middle.

It wasn’t until Hajime had sat back down at his work desk that he bothered to look at his aching digits. When he did, he doubled over and threw up on the plywood floor.

Four thick, leather talons clenched together in each brutal fist, as scales ran up his arms and down his back; he felt fur brush against his knees, and frantically discovered a wild mane growing out of his neck and chest. But the worst feeling was the sensation of having too much bone and tooth in his face. Horrified enough by his hands, he decided to ditch tactile discovery in favor of the mirror in the washroom – and he instantly regretted his decision.

Two ribbed horns had begun to wind out of Hajime’s skull, bony little nubs like one might find on some demonic entity. Thick ivory tusks curled from under his lip, each ending in a point about three inches from his face.

Seeing no other options, Hajime sat on the ground, stuck his head between his scaly knees, and screamed.

Chapter Text

“Shit, shit, shit, shit…”

Hajime took an enormous breath and held it as he tried to process what had happened. The horns, the tusks, the misshapen limbs: he’d been turned into an oni.

The malevolent ogre-demons of legend were simple brutes, typically with an agenda to bash in some heads before some hero showed up on a slaughterhouse mission. Again, Hajime wasn’t one for myths and legends to begin with – but he absolutely hated the oni, with their pointless bloodlust and hellish sadism. He guessed they used clubs because they were too obtuse to learn swordplay or the techniques for any other weaponry. A club was pretty straightforward, so long as one had the strength to smash it around.

“Well…” Hajime sighed, a throaty sound that almost made him jump. He eased himself onto his feet – and realized that his feet had doubled in size, having split his shoes open and rendered every pair of his useless.

Those won’t fit in a single pair of shoes in the village, he thought, tightening his frown and feeling smaller fangs pierce his bottom lip. This body would take some getting used to, for sure. It was an endeavor he feared – he had caught only a glimpse of himself in the mirror before bolting in horror, so the details of his appearance were lost on him. He was tempted to shatter every reflective surface in the house and leave it at that; but Hajime wasn’t one for running, and he knew that his imagination would construe a far more disgusting face for himself than whichever one he actually had.

Tentatively, he reapproached the washroom mirror.

The tusks were still by far the most eye-catching feature in Hajime’s face. Slightly yellowed, they had to be ivory teeth – probably too short to be useful, but perhaps sharp enough to gore someone who got too close. If they didn’t lift his mouth into what looked like a perpetual sneer, Hajime thought they could actually be – almost!– sort of cool.

He had also gotten taller and broader, such that his horns nearly brushed the ceiling. His nose was twisted up like a pug’s snout, he noticed, and his scowl was even more pronounced than before – the skin on his face was loose and twisted into ugly wads that scrunched around his beady eyes.

He didn’t really have a sense of denial about the situation. It didn’t look like a dream, or feel like one, and although Hajime wasn’t one for magic, he certainly wasn’t one for deluding oneself, either.

“I guess you don’t look much worse for wear,” he mumbled to his image in the mirror, still a little put-off by the extra baritone growl to his voice. He figured that, for an oni, he wasn’t all that bad-looking – no warts, no cyclops eye, no massive globs of scar-tissue. “But you can’t stay here. They’ll come for your head in a heartbeat.”

Like any reasonable person would, he added silently. Who could blame them?

His father would be back in the morning to check up on his progress and resume his work on the ornate giftbox in the back of the shoppe. Hajime couldn’t possibly break the old man’s heart with his misshapen visage.

I’ll have to leave tonight.

It would probably still bring his father pain, to think that his eldest had deserted him – but at least the old blacksmith could believe that Hajime had found his fortune elsewhere.

Carefully, Hajime clomped into the forge’s tiny kitchenette, mostly empty and unused. His father had designed the miniscule addition for fueling overnight endeavors from the two of them – he could remember helping to lay the bricks and tile the walls when he was only eleven, and just entering his official apprenticeship under the eldest Iwaizumi-san. The room was freezing during the winter, since they hadn’t bothered with the fancy insulation techniques of Kitagawa’s wealthier inhabitants; all they’d needed was a roof and a pantry.

He couldn’t tell if it was the chilled night air or nostalgia, but Hajime felt something wistful and damp tickle his throat. He shrugged it off as best he could, shuffling to fill an old leather worksack with a couple loaves of hard rye bread, and a block of cheese that miraculously hadn’t spoiled. It would suffice, he figured, until he found somewhere to stay.

And then, snuffing the candles on his way out the door, Hajime left.

The trolley through town didn’t run at night, unfortunately, but Hajime doubted he could have boarded a train with his current appearance, regardless. The journey on foot wasn’t so bad, anyway, now that his legs were a little longer, and his strides a little wider. He could manage.

Hajime figured that he would head to The Wastes. All sorts of demons and monsters called The Wastes home; at the very least, he wouldn’t be so horribly out of place. It wasn’t so far away from the Shoppe District – Hajime figured he could make it there before daybreak, as long as he kept moving.

Everything felt a little bit stranger through his new body. The cobblestone streets felt uncomfortably hard and dry, although the night-time chill didn’t bother him as much as he expected; every change of the wind registered on his arms, almost like a new sense had budded along with his excessive body hair. And his limbs felt heavier and clunkier in general – he had gotten stronger, for sure, but the muscle weighed him down as much as it powered him forward.

As he neared the edge of town, Hajime picked up the scent of fresh sourdough bread, with hints of sage and rosemary. Definitely a batch of Taji’s morning loaves , he recognized; his sense of smell must have sharpened a bit, as well.

Still, I haven’t gotten very far if I can still smell the bakery, he thought grudgingly. Merchants swarmed around Kitagawa for at least another two or three miles – he would almost certainly be sighted if he didn’t clear that distance before daylight. Judging by the faint touches of light on the horizon, Hajime figured he probably had about an hour before he’d really be in trouble.

As he journeyed on, the faint clack of horse hooves grew like a shadow behind Hajime; when he glanced behind himself, the hooded rider and cart were alarmingly close. He considered running for a brief moment – but no, running would draw the man’s attention for sure, and with nothing but cityscape and plains for his surroundings, a chase wouldn’t end favorably for Hajime. His best option was to keep his head down and hope the caravan passed him by.

It wasn’t long before the steady clopping slowed beside him.

“Morning – if you can call it that,” the driver grumbled loudly, eying Hajime from atop his mottled brown horse. “Where’re you headed, at this hour?”

It must be too dark for him to see my face, Hajime realized. He faked a cough.

“Just a little farther from where you’re going.”

“Wow, you sound awful,” the man shook his head. “Hey, you can ride in the back if you want. Sakanoshita here can handle you!” he grinned, smacking the mare’s neck heartily.

So Hajime was able to rest his feet for a welcome break, watching the village shrink from the back of a musty caravan. It was almost the furthest he had ever been from town – he had accompanied his father to a neighboring port city’s marketplace when he was nine or ten, he recalled, and he had been awed by the bustling metropolis. It had seemed, then, like a festival of houses and shoppes and fruit-stands on the streets, everything glittering with some sort of magnetic enchantment.

But Hajime couldn’t picture himself with that sort of life. He couldn’t picture himself with that many people – really, he couldn’t picture himself with much of anyone at all.

By the time the cart rolled to a stop beside a sunny-looking farmhouse, most of the stars had faded from the sky, and yellow-white wisps had infiltrated the horizon. Hajime dropped off of the cart, overcome by the incredible feeling of having his feet engulfed in mud.

“So, you must be going to The Wastes, then,” the driver grunted, sauntering over to meet his passenger. Hajime froze. If running had been a bad idea before, it was a godawful one now – but he probably would have to take his chances at this point.

“...wow. That’s one ugly mug you’ve got,” the man said, running his fingers through his mats of straw-yellow hair. “Geez. I just gave a demon a ride, didn’t I.”

“Well...” Hajime shuffled. He wanted to contradict the man, of course, but he couldn’t come up with the words to explain himself. He wasn’t a demon, true – but he sure as hell wasn’t human, either.

“Heh, you must be a rookie demon if you’re here to take me out. Or maybe you’re hunting for a contract?” he added, smirking around a cigarette. “You’d have to break my arm to get me to sign anything. I ain’t some city-fool.”

“I’m not here for anything!” Hajime protested sheepishly. “I meant what I said. I’ll just be going, now.”

“You’re crazy if you do this, Ogre-kun. There’s nothin’ but witches and wizards out there.”

“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind,” Hajime mumbled.

The man opened his mouth, as if to say something else, but a holler from the farmhouse caught his attention.

“Coming, Ittetsu!” he shouted back. “Well...good luck? I guess?”

Hajime nodded, bowing gruffly before walking for the hills.

Behind him, he heard the two men muttering – “He’s going to the Wastes? By himself?”

“He’s an oni, Itte – who knows what he’s thinking?”

Hajime groaned as he lowered himself to the ground, even more perturbed by the boar-like sound that came out of his mouth than the pain that had led him to sit.

Gently, he examined his feet. It was peculiar – Hajime was pretty sure that oni were never described as shoe-wearers, but his feet certainly weren’t coping well with his barefoot trek. The soles were ravaged with blisters and skinned patches, with blades of grass slicing at the raw skin, or getting stuck in the scabs trying to form. It must have happened in the town, Hajime figured, and only begun to bother him now. Oni were built for steaming swamps and caves, full of mud and dead leaves; still, Hajime thought it was a little pathetic that a little cobblestone had torn up his feet so brutally.

“I guess I don’t even get to enjoy the good parts of being a brute,” he complained to himself.

Hajime moved to unwrap his lunch, but before he could get his hands around the cloth (pesky talons), he spotted a thick piece of wood sticking up out of a shrub-bush.

“That would make a nice club,” he considered. “I may as well look the part, I guess…”

Hajime hoisted himself to his feet, despite their nipping pains of protest, and grasped the bough in his clawed grip. He stepped back, took a breath, and gave a full-bodied pull –

– and fell backwards with a startled yelp, as a well-suited gentleman swung upright.

“Oh…” Hajime was momentarily stunned, before he managed to relax. “You’re just a scarecrow, you asshole. But how are you standing on your own, like that…?”

It was an imposingly tall scarecrow, for starters, with a dapper blue bow tie and long black coat-tails, flapping white gloves, and –

“Your head’s a shallot!” Hajime exclaimed, pushing himself off the ground to get a better look. “I’ve always hated shallots. Ever since I was little. At least you’re not upside-down, now…”

Despite the pangs in his feet and stomach (now that he had pulled out his lunch), Hajime had the feeling he should be moving on. Intrigued as he was, he didn’t really want to get mixed up in any more magic – one curse a day was enough for him, thanks.

Twilight came quickly, and the evening chill came with it. Hajime still wasn’t bothered by the weather, but he was beginning to notice another
issue – 

“What I’d give for a sandwich,” he growled, pausing to clutch at his gut.

He had scarfed down the bread and cheese from the smithery, already; he’d been properly satiated for all of twenty minutes before his stomach began its complaining anew. The hunger made sense, given his enormous body – he just wished he’d anticipated it sooner.

And, on that note, Hajime also wished he had thought a little bit more about where, exactly, he was going. Kitagawa might have been a small village, but Hajime was no country boy – he wouldn’t last long fending for himself on an endless, deserted plateau. If he was lucky, some power-hungry warlock would watch wind of him and lay claim to his services; if not, he would probably just...starve.

Or maybe Hajime would find out that he’d been a real brute after all – just a simple beast wearing the skin of a human. According to some legends, oni were reincarnations of the most wicked humans...Hajime couldn’t really see himself as one of those. If nothing else, he was decent. More common were the flippant accusations that “a child that doesn’t resemble his parents is the child of oni.” True, Hajime had followed in his father’s footsteps, but that had been a choice borne of necessity rather than kinship. In truth, the blacksmith knew that he wasn’t nearly as charismatic or likeable as his father – rather, he was stubborn, and aggressive, and stupidly loyal. All forgivable traits, sure, but each was an echo to the same, overwhelming sentiment, an idea that had bothered him for most of his life: that there was nothing extraordinary about Iwaizumi Hajime.

The sound of shuffling dirt caught his attention. Hajime glanced over his shoulder, and saw the unwelcome sight of the shallot-headed scarecrow, digging his stick in the ground with every bound, steadily vaulting his way towards the ogre-beast.

“Go away!” he yelled. “Quit following me! There’s no way in hell I’m dealing with another witch, or wizard, or spell in this lifetime! So just...I dunno...find some field and stand in it.”

Hajime forced himself back into motion, hating the feeling of bare, dusty earth and gravel grinding into his raw-worn feet. And he could still hear that damn scarecrow following behind him – why couldn’t the blasted thing take a hint?

A little tuned out, Hajime snapped back to attention with a loud clunk beside him. He glanced to his side, and found a ridiculously large pair of wood-and-leather sandals, stilted like hooves and inscribed with white paint on the edges.

“...thanks, Shallot-Head. These are exactly what I needed.” Hajime smiled slightly; he couldn’t help growing a little fond of the scarecrow at this point, magic or not. It didn’t seem like Shallot-Head could talk; nevertheless, Hajime could use the company, at this point.

But before he could say anything else, Shallot-Head was already hopping off.

“Er...be seeing you, then?”

Shrugging to himself, Hajime bent down to brush off his feet, and slipped on one of the sandals – after tightening the straps a bit, the shoes fit almost perfectly. He couldn’t imagine where the scarecrow had gotten them from, and he was content with not knowing – if there were more oni wandering around, he didn’t really want to know about them or their shoe brands.

“A battleship…”

Hajime watched the oar-like wings of the aircraft disappear behind grey clouds, only betrayed by a blinking red light. It must have been headed to spit out Crows on some unsuspecting township – hundreds of Karasuno’s henchmen could fit in the ammunition chambers of each warship, and the conquest-hungry kingdom wasn’t the type to pull any punches.

Something smells like smoke. Maybe there’s a cabin nearby, Hajime thought desperately, mouth watering with the prospect of food. It could be just over the top of this hill…

As he trudged up the spotty foothill – a much more manageable endeavor, given the sandals – Hajime could hear a familiar sound, like a spade digging in sand, along with a faint groaning.

“Shallot-Head?” he called, concerned – but the blacksmith didn’t think scarecrows could really make that much noise, one way or another. And indeed, as the distance between them began to close, Hajime heard the deeper groans as more of a creaking sound, like stone rubbing against stone, scraping with the rhythm of clockwork.

When he finally topped the hill and had a clear view of the plains ahead of him, Hajime was awe-struck.

Four stories of white-glazed castle walls teetered precariously on stilted legs, bent awkwardly at the knees like an overloaded pack mule. Elegant gables, lain with steel-thatched roofing, seemed to slide and waver with every step; rocks and pebbles crumbled off of the stone foundation; and smoke billowed out of the gargoyle-capped rooftop and slatted windows, leaving an obscure trail of exhaust and hoof-prints with every step. All in all, it looked like an uprooted wedding cake slapped onto a newborn foal.

And there was Shallot-Head, hopping in front of the monstrosity with his normal cheer.

“You Shallot-Head! That’s the stolen Aoba Castle!” Hajime shouted.

The scarecrow gave a small leap, as if to offer confirmation, as the castle came to a stop over their heads. Smog billowed out of every opening, as though the fortress was sighing, or offering a swan song.

A cluster of rocks dropped over Hajime, one nearly nailing him in the head. “And they call this a castle,” he scoffed quietly.

With a structural shudder, the castle straightened its legs (really, they looked like wooden horse legs, or something) and resumed its sluggish gait. Again, Hajime was almost hit in the head – this time by a crumbling stone entryway, complete with railings, a hanging lantern, and an ornately carved door.

Shallot-Head seemed to look back at Hajime before springing after the castle; the ogre-man was quick to follow, stumbling in his scramble to grab the rails.

“Make up your mind!” he growled. “Are you gonna let me in, or not?”

In a few stubborn strides and an unexpected dip in the castle’s step, he managed to hoist himself up. He rattled the doorknob – unlocked.

“I’m going in, Shallot. I’m sure Oikawa won’t eat the heart of a brute like me. Will you be okay?” he yelled down to the scarecrow, who made no response other than continuing to keep pace with the castle.

Well...how much could happen to a scarecrow, anyway? Hajime thought, giving a final wave before slipping through the doorway.

Whatever Hajime had been expecting...it wasn’t what he found.

The house was almost lightless. Mold, cobwebs, and layers upon layers of dust had caked onto every surface in the crude abode. The castle had to have been smaller on the inside, somehow – there was nothing in sight but a hearth, a chamberpot, and a rickety staircase. Ah, and a couple of tables he had overlooked – each was concealed with torn anthologies and scattered papers. Dead plants littered the floor, with the occasional green shoot reaching for one of the pitiful windows, while the walls were heavy with ethers and potion bottles – mostly empty, from what he could see.

Drawn like a moth to the only source of light in the room, Hajime approached the fireplace, wiping a clawed finger on the uneven stone and surveying the thick, ashy grime with disgust. And look at that – the fire’s practically out, he noticed with a scowl, scouring the room until he spotted the small stash of log quarters thrown carelessly in a corner.

“What a dump,” he said, tossing a couple pieces of firewood over the struggling flame. “Honestly – why bother stealing a famous castle if you’re just gonna let it go to shit?”

The fire flickered in sullen agreement.

Hajime brushed a pile of sales receipts off of a dark wooden stool and pulled it in front of the fire, hunching forward as he sat down for the first time in hours. Resting his head on his hands, he closed his eyes and enjoyed a moment of relative peace.

“You owe me,” he mumbled to the fireplace, beginning to drift off.

“Do not.”

Hajime’s eyes snapped open. He looked around – no one there –

“I let you in,” the fire elaborated, glaring at him from the hearth. “You fed me. We’re even.”

“What the hell,” Hajime stared, “are you – is a fire – why are you talking? ”

“So I don’t owe you a damn thing,” the fire concluded, settling to a dim glow beneath the wood.

Of course, Hajime wasn’t about to let a cooking flame tell him what was what. But he was worn out, hungry, and not really in the mood for confrontation, so he figured he’d save that battle for the morning.

Chapter Text

“Wooow. I don’t envy you, Oni-san – that is one nasty curse.”

Hajime startled awake, almost falling off of his stool. His back twinged in protest; he must have slept hunched over in front of the fire, he realized.

“Let me guess – the curse won’t allow you to talk about it, right?”

It was a well-dressed man speaking, clean-cut and composed, with a delicate patterned cane in his right hand. He looked only a little younger than Hajime, and had a professional air about him, with a smart white jacket and matching trousers. Indeed, the man could have passed for a wealthy merchant – or even a palace attendant – if not for his telltale staff.

“Do you even live here?” Hajime yawned, surprising himself with a boarish grumble.

“Well,” the man pursed his lips, “no. Not yet!” he added hastily. “But I’m as good as a resident, and that’s the truth. Kyoutani here would never turn me away, isn’t that right?”

“Feh,” the fire spat.

“That’s the closest to a ‘yes’ you’ll ever get out of him. I’m Yahaba, by the way,” the man said. “Yahaba Shigeru, up-and-coming-sorcerer, at your service. Seems like you and Kyouken have already met…?”

“Him?” Hajime gestured to the fire. “Yeah. I guess? We spoke.”

Kyoutani eyed him maliciously, giving no affirmation one way or the other.

“I’m sure,” Yahaba smirked. “Well, in case you forgot to swap names – Kyoutani Kentarou, fire demon extraordinaire, and the ever-lauded partner of Oikawa himself.”

“‘Partner’?” Kyoutani scoffed. “That’s generous.”

Hajime considered the pair. “Fire demons are pretty dangerous, aren’t they?”

“Oh, they’re the most wicked spirits around,” Yahaba grinned menacingly. “As far as raw power goes, they’re absolutely loaded. And they’re notoriously hard to catch – no one knows how Oikawa found this little guy.” He wriggled a finger under Kyoutani’s flame-spilling mouth, yanking back his hand when the fire nipped at him. “Rude.”

“Fuck off.”

“Well, I’m afraid I might have to,” Yahaba sighed as the front door clicked, a sound like the slide of a deadbolt lock, followed by a friendly chime. “It looks like Oikawa’s back. But I’d guess that you were about to ask if Kyouken can break your curse, eh, Oni-san?”

“It’s Iwaizumi,” Hajime mumbled.

“Well, Iwaizumi-san, I’d venture to say this.” Yahaba raised a finger to point at him. “If you can figure out how to break the spell on Kyoutani, then I’m sure that – well, between my brains and his brawn – that we could break your spell, no problem. Now, do we have a deal?”

“What deal is there to even make?” Hajime exclaimed. “I don’t know how to break your – his – anyone’s curse or whatever. I don’t know the first thing about curses. I can’t even break my own!”

“You mean to tell me that you’re not a magic user?” Yahaba seemed to look him over again, shaking his head in disbelief. “Well. If you say so, I suppose. But then, it wouldn’t hurt to agree anyway, then, just in case you figure it out. Right, Iwaizumi-san?”

“I,” Hajime flailed, “uh, sure. Alright. Deal.”

“Fantastic~!” Yahaba cheered; Hajime was repulsed by the stunning resemblance the young man shared with Oikawa. 

The sorcerer gave the doorknob a firm turn to the left, with an affirmative click to follow. The door chimed, flew open, and –

There must have been three hundred people milling around outside, talking and arguing and selling and buying, and driving cars . Big black cars, buzzing down the main street, with pairs of purebred horses pulling elegant buggies. The ground was brick, perfectly cut from expensive lime-and-clay; the buildings were steepled in gold and green-tinged copper, each at least three stories tall and with more windows than Hajime had ever seen before; and maroon-coated guards stood proudly at every corner, teasing passerby ladies and chatting in clusters.

“Well, I’ll be seeing you all, then,” Yahaba smiled, nodding politely as he stepped out and shut the door.

“Is that – was that King’s Square, just now...?” Hajime said, dumbfounded. He looked to Kyoutani, who only glared sullenly back at him.

The door clicked and chimed again. This time, Hajime noticed a colored dial, set above the doorknob, that flickered from red to blue as the door opened to – that’s Kitagawa!

“Kyoutani? Is Oikawa back yet?”

Hajime almost didn’t see the newcomer – a boy, no older than ten or eleven, with a cloak around his shoulders and an irritated expression.

“No,” the fire barked.

The boy slammed the door. “Well? When’s he coming back?”

“Dunno.”

“That ass,” the boy scowled, skulking up the stairs before noticing Hajime. He flinched backwards. “Kyoutani! What the hell is this thing doing here?”

“Dunno,” Kyoutani repeated, glaring steadily. “It just came in.”

“Well, why the hell’d you let it in, then?”

“It has a name, you know,” Hajime gritted his teeth, equal parts pissed and embarrassed.

The boy straightened up at that, stepping a little closer to study Hajime properly. He circled the ogre slowly, gave a tiny nod, and stuck out his hand. “Okay, Oni-san. You better follow the rules here, or I’ll kick you out on your ass.”

Hajime held back a snort as he shook hands with the boy, who was about half his own height. “What’re the rules?”

“Don’t touch my stuff. I’m Takeru,” he added, “and my room has my name on it, so stay out. Don’t touch Oikawa’s stuff, either. And don’t mess with anything else!”

“Fine.” Hajime drew back his hand. “What’s the deal with the door?”

No sooner had he mentioned the door than a knock rang against the wood.

“Kitagawa ,” Kyoutani growled. Takeru shoved Hajime aside (well, he gave Hajime a push that startled him enough to move out of the way) and drew his hood up. As he drew his fingers down his face, a scraggly grey beard seemed to grow out from the grooves on his wrinkling face, hanging nearly to the boy’s knees.

“Stand by,” he ordered in a husky voice.

Takeru opened the door to a young woman, shuffling her feet anxiously. With short blonde hair and cuffed sleeves, she reminded Hajime of a cream puff.

“Good day, miss,” Takeru rasped. “What can I do for you?”

Personally, Hajime didn’t think the boy’s performance was particularly convincing. He walked too quickly, his voice was too scratchy to be real, and his eyes were uneven and too far off to either side. Magic always made things a little uncanny.

But the girl never so much as looked up at Takeru. “I-I came to pick up a potion,” she stammered, a blush rising in her cheeks. “For my granny.”

“Of course. Come,” Takeru beckoned, leading her up the steps and blowing past Hajime without so much as a glance.

The girl still noticed, however, and gave a bewildered squeak as soon as she caught sight of him. Hajime was a little dampened at that – she was awfully sweet looking, and he would have been rather interested if circumstances were more forgiving.

“What?” he grunted. The girl cringed.

“Well, er,” she stammered, “you’re a m-monster, aren’t you?”

“You never seen a guy with long hair before?”

The girl was silent for a moment; then, she burst out frantically.

“Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry, mister, I just – I assumed – but I shouldn’t have!” she cried. “I should never have assumed! A-and your hair looks great! I never meant to imply that it looked, umm...monsterly, or anything!”

“It’s alright,” Hajime assured her, amused, albeit with the slightest tinge of guilt.

“Here you go, miss,” Takeru cut in, handing a vial of light grey sludge to the girl. “Mix a little of this into her tea, twice a day, five days. Come back and see us if the coughing hasn’t subsided.”

“O-oh,” the girl nodded vigorously, “okay! I’ll do that. Thank you so much!”

As soon as he had shut the door behind her, Takeru whipped back around and stormed up to Hajime.

“Don’t mess with the customers like that,” he snapped, waving away his disguise in annoyance. “You’re no better than Oikawa. She’s one of our meal tickets, you know!”

“Like you have the moral high ground,” Hajime retorted, “milking her pocketbook. Was that a potion or a jar of mud?”

“Shut up. Presentation isn’t everything,” Takeru glowered, stomping upstairs.

After a few minutes of Kyoutani glaring at him, Hajime came to regret picking a fight with the only reasonably vocal inhabitant of the blasted castle, even if that inhabitant was a brat with a buzzcut. So, he decided to make amends via the fastest route to a boy’s heart –

“– quit squirming around under there!” Hajime yelled, slamming the frying pan decisively over the fire. “This’d go a lot faster if you’d stop moving, dumbass.”

“I don’t cook,” Kyoutani hissed, dribbling back below the logs.

Hajime jabbed around in the ashes with his spatula. “You coward. You’re hiding like a field mouse under there. Get out here and face me like a real demon, or just admit that some stupid ogre’s already got you beat.”

A tendril of fire lashed out, drawing a scorch mark across Hajime’s taloned hand.

“What? You gonna bat at me like some kitty-cat scared shitless, now?” he taunted.

If anyone should have been scared shitless, it was himself, as Hajime was well aware. Demons weren’t to be trifled with. But the curious thing about being an oni, Hajime had discovered, was that one could be fully aware of danger, distress, and imminent doom...yet fear seemed worlds away. He figured the pea-sized brain of an ogre had simply run out of room for caution of any sort.

“You must be one hell of a weak fire demon. I bet you can’t even burn this bacon,” Hajime scoffed, waving the raw meat in the air.

“Fuck you.”

“Bet you’re too chicken to take me on.”

“Bring it,” Kyoutani roared, flaring up in a brilliant orange blaze that tickled the ceiling, eyes white like the rolling stare of a rabid dog. Sweltering waves fumed from the furnace, curling the hairs on Hajime’s arms as he stepped closer, pan and bacon in hand. It occurred to the blacksmith, for a moment, that cooking on a demon might be an unwise idea.

And then the moment passed, and Hajime thrust the frying pan into the middle of the maelstrom.

“What’re you doing?” Takeru shouted from the top of the staircase.

“We’re cooking,” Hajime answered evenly, pushing against the resentful flames and slapping a couple strips of meat onto the skillet.

“No, you – you can’t just cook! Kyoutani doesn’t listen to anyone but Oikawa,” the boy exclaimed.

“Then someone had better clean out his ears.” Hajime felt the skin on his wrists and hands swelling with blisters and his muscles twitching under the strain, as though he were arm-wrestling the demon into submission. Quickly, he flipped the bacon with his free hand; both pieces were crispy on one side, seconds away from becoming a charred disaster.

“Plate, Takeru,” Hajime ordered. Stunned, the boy obeyed.

In a brusque motion, the ogre dumped the bacon, blocking a frantic tongue of fire with the butt of the pan.

“You lose.”

“I could eat you,” Kyoutani snarled.

“You still lose,” Hajime replied. “Now simmer down and stop complaining before you run out of wood to burn.”

Surprisingly, Kyoutani listened.

“Egg,” Hajime called, laying on two more strips of bacon with a temperate sizzle. The moment he felt the round shell against his palm, the door clicked, chimed, and –

“Ha ha , if I haven’t bested that twerp Tobio this time, I’ll be damned, Takeru!”

It was as though a wave of charisma had washed the room clean, pulling all eyes towards the dashing man who’d emerged from an outside void, elegantly poised, with flawlessly styled chestnut hair still perfectly intact.

So it is you, Hajime thought, stiffening the slightest bit. Oikawa the Heart-Eater…

Determined not to let his hesitations show, Hajime returned to cooking, keeping his eyes and focus on the work as best he could.

“Oh? Kyouken-chan, you’re being so obedient~.”

The hairs on Hajime’s neck and back stood up as he felt Oikawa move behind him, as though some primal part of the ogre’s being could innately sense the sorcerer’s power. Even Kyoutani seemed to shy away, expression shifting from grudging to wary.

“And who’s this?”

Brandishing the egg with a firm four-clawed grip, Hajime firmly rapped it on the side of the skillet.

Hajime promptly discovered what the “firm rap” of an oni looked like.

Globs of egg splatted across the table, gunking over papers and chairs and Oikawa and, of course, Hajime himself, staining patches of his mane with sticky yellow, leaving his fingers dripping with raw egg, the texture of snot, with bits of shell scattered throughout.

A great and dreadful silence fell over the room. Hajime didn’t move, or breathe, or so much as glance at the man behind him. In front of him, little bits of egg white began to burn over a very bewildered Kyoutani, whose tentative flames were the only source of movement in the room.

Then, Takeru burst out laughing.

“You –,” he wheezed, “– you just – ohmygod – that’s the lamest thing I’ve ever seen, Oni-san.”

“Ah, shut up, you ingrate,” Hajime grumbled. The atmosphere loosened, as even Kyoutani seemed to lighten in relief.

“Give me that, you brute,” Oikawa huffed, snatching the frying pan out of Hajime’s misshapen hand. “Ugh, now I have to shower again, and redry my hair, and clean my coat…”

“Stop whining, Tooru. You’re the whiniest uncle ever,” Takeru declared.

“Am not.” Oikawa crossed his arms. “And a little respect would be nice, now and again.”

“Not for you.” Takeru stuck his tongue out defiantly.

Oikawa gave a little huff. “Whatever. You,” he pointed rudely at Hajime, “give me three more slices of bacon, and five of those eggs.”

Carefully, Hajime dug around in the cloth-lined basket on the table for loose eggs, nestled in between onions and wilted scallions; it was clear, looking at the groceries and studies scattered across the room, that neither Oikawa nor Takeru saw organization as a worthwhile pursuit.

“So slow,” Oikawa chided, although Hajime couldn’t miss the lilt of humor in his voice.

The wizard held his hand out for the eggs, delicately closing his fingers around the clutch. In three fluid, elegant motions, he cracked them each against the pan, tossing each eggshell into Kyoutani’s expectant mouth, before holding his hand back out for the other two. Every movement was deliberate – and not without some artistic quality to it.

For one reason or another, Hajime was enraptured.

Within a few minutes, the food was plated, the tea poured, and the trio seated, with parchment piled beneath the table in messy half-fallen stacks.

“Which d’ya want?” Takeru asked, holding out two grimy spoons and a fork to Hajime. “You only get one, ‘cause the rest are dirty.”

Hajime grabbed the fork. He didn’t trust the other two with anything sharp.

“Well, I guess that’s it, then. Bon appetit~,” Oikawa motioned grandly to the breakfast spread before taking a spoon to his heaping plate with vigor.

“Is’s been forerer,” Takeru commented around a mouthful, “sinze we ha’ a real brea’fas’, Tooru. This i’ –”

Hajime whacked Takeru over the head. “Shut up until you finish your bite,” he growled.

Takeru gulped, belched, and began again. “This is great! We should do it more often.”

“You should take that up with Oni-chan,” Oikawa advised, flashing a quick wink to the ogre. “Speaking of which – what brings you to our little castle, anyway?”

Hajime was less than amused. “It’s Iwaizumi, and I’m here as your new...bodyguard.”

“Bodyguard?” Oikawa repeated, smirking. “You? Guard me?”

“That’s right.” Hajime hadn’t been able to think of many positions that an oni was well-suited for, so he’d simply blurted out the first thing that popped into his head.

“And who hired you?”

“Kyoutani,” he replied smoothly. “He may not say anything, but he worries about you. Especially with all this war nonsense outside our door.”

“Hmph. Nonsense is right,” Oikawa agreed darkly. “Shiratorizawa’s carrying bombs again. They’re already preparing to take back Kitagawa before they’ve lost it in the first place.”

“So Karasuno’s planning an invasion?” Takeru’s eyes widened.

“That’s right. They’re all repulsive,” Oikawa said, eyes betraying a deep resentment before his expression lightened a bit. “Speaking of those brutes, what’s that in your pocket, Iwa-chan?”

“It’s Iwaizumi,” he corrected sharply, “and there’s nothing...”

Hajime trailed off as his clawtips grazed across the edge of a folded paper.

“What is this…?”

“Give it to me.”

Oikawa held out a hand to take the note from Hajime – yet as soon as it touched the wizard’s fingers, the paper blackened in a flash of dark fire. Fluttering to the table, the smoking parchment burned a four-pointed design of vague symbols and concentric circles, the mark glowing ominously as shadows oozed into the grimy wood.

“Scorch marks,” Takeru said, awestruck. “Tooru, can you read them?”

“That is ancient sorcery. Quite powerful, too.”

“It’s from the Witch of Waste?” The boy leaned closer, staring intently.

“‘You who swallowed a falling star, o’ heartless man,’” Oikawa read, “‘soon you shall swallow your worthless pride as well.’ That can’t be good for the table.” Oikawa curled his lip, cupping his hand over the edge of the rune. Slowly – and Hajime could swear he felt the castle tremble around them – he drew his hand across the mark, a raw fury in his eyes, leaving nothing but smoke and a black smudge of ash in its wake.

“It’s gone!” Takeru exclaimed.

“The mark is gone,” Oikawa corrected quietly, “but the spell is still there. If you’ll excuse me,” he added, pushing his chair back as he rose.

“Oi – where are you going?” Hajime demanded, moving to get up as well.

“Kyoutani, move us 60 miles to the west. While you’re at it,” the sorcerer hummed, dumping the remains of his meal into the demon’s gaping maw, “make water for my bath. And Iwa-chan, don’t worry your pretty little head over all of these silly curses and spells. After all, a good bodyguard has big fists and an empty head~!”

“You...” Hajime bristled, drawing his lips back in an irked snarl. Oikawa only tittered in reply as he disappeared up the stairs, cloak flapping behind him like a trail of cloudy sky.

Chapter Text

After standing dumbly in front of the stairs for a good minute, it finally occurred to Hajime that he should probably find something more worthwhile to do.

Bodyguard, huh…

Hajime had gone from strong to stronger, thanks to the curse, and he knew how to throw a pretty mean punch. If he were guarding any other person, his bare hands would probably suffice. But Hajime wasn’t delusional – his fists wouldn’t do shit to another wizard, or even a well-armed guard. He’d have his ass handed to him before even landing a hit.

“Say, Oni-san…”

Hajime glanced back at Takeru. “Mmh.”

“You’re not working for Ushijima, are you?”

There was a moment of taut silence as Hajime processed the question. Then, the atmosphere flipped.

“What?” Hajime exploded. “I wouldn’t be caught dead working for that scumbag! What about me would you ever associate with –”

“– I was just making –”

“– presumptuous dictator? Does anything about me –”

“– calm down –”

“– warhawk piece of trash! And to top it off, he’s the one who –”

But Hajime couldn’t finish his sentence, to his irate realization; his jaw had locked up like a bout of tetanus. He struggled and ground his teeth together, and even tried to pry his mouth open with his hands – to no avail.

Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit,

“...dammit, dammit!” he roared. “If I ever get my hands on that bastard, I’ll tear him a new one!”

“Okay, okay. Calm down, Oni-san,” Takeru said. “You look like a porcupine.”

Hajime looked down at himself and caught sight of his mane. His hackles were raised like a spitting cat, with every strand of oily hair on end – all in all, he looked like a pufferfish nightmare.

He huffed, letting a little of his rage dissipate. “I’m done with sitting around,” he declared, “and letting dumbass wizards cast spells wherever they want.”

“What’re you gonna do?” Takeru asked, doubt clear in his voice. Which was fair, since Hajime didn’t have a clear answer to give.

“...well, I’m a blacksmith,” he said, “so I should probably start there.”

The stairwell, Hajime found, was deceptive. He found a dust-crusted hallway that smelled like mold, with doors leading to three rooms (one aptly labeled Takeru’s – Keep Out ) and a crappy balcony sticking out of the second floor gable. Grubs and spiders nestled in the rotting wood, adding to Hajime’s fear that the castle might topple over at any given moment.

When he came to the end of the hall, Hajime found a splintery hole in a seemingly featureless wall, edges crawling with termites.

Talk about trashy, he thought.

He hit the wall a couple of times with an open palm, hoping to shake some of the burrowing insects out of the wood. Little white worm-beetles fell like plump raindrops, rolling around on the ground sluggishly and, for a moment, Hajime was caught by the same fascination that had defined his childhood. Indeed, his father and siblings had never understood his love for the gross and the mundane, but Hajime’s appreciation was sincere – he loved bugs and snakes the same way others loved ugly babies with scrunched-up faces.

Unfortunately, Hajime’s strength got the better of him again, and his hand slapped straight through the wall.

“Dammit,” he muttered. He could feel the splinters embedding themselves in his skin, and expected the amount of wood in his arm to double when he pulled it out of the wall.

But then, his hand brushed against something cool. He fumbled around and grabbed the offending object, which was heavy and familiar, crescent-shaped with a grainy texture. Carefully, he pulled it out.

A horseshoe? He eyed the wall suspiciously. What the hell…?

Upon further inspection, Hajime retrieved no fewer than nine horseshoes, sixteen cogs, and two steel jaw-traps from the other side of the wall. He had no idea what sort of room sat beyond a doorless wall, or why the strange array of objects had been piled within reach. But unfortunately, he could see nothing but darkness through the two holes in the wall – and he wasn’t about to tear open another person’s home.

In any case, he had his materials. He could forge.

“Oi.”

The ogre didn’t reply, bringing the bottom of his sandal back down upon the modest lump of metal in his hand. Nearly anything could be used as a club, Hajime found, so long as there was sufficient brawn behind it – and his misshapen hands seemed better suited than ever for holding his makeshift hammer and blade, holding each as steadily as a hawk might grip a perch.

“Oi.”

“Hold on,” Hajime said, landing another firm blow on his piece. Clang.

“I can’t,” Kyoutani growled.

“You can.”

“No, I can’t.”

Clang.

In his mind, Hajime pictured himself stitching together some kind of Frankensteinian monster, a magic-gobbling hound to set loose on any wanded stragglers. In a sense, he was making exactly that: an ugly conglomeration of bits and bobs, with an edge just sharp enough to snap at the hands of an ill-intentioned sorcerer.

He eyed his work with a faint satisfaction, and a warm sense of ownership. If any one of those sparkly shitheads even thinks about casting a spell on me, you’re skewering ‘em like a kebob.

“Stop mumbling to yourself like an idiot.” The fire’s voice had some high, painful quality to it, like a dog whine. “I need wood. Now.”

Clang. “Give me three minutes.”

“Fuck you.”

Hajime didn’t spare him a glance. “Make that five.”

Kyoutani muttered something mutinously under his breath.

“What was that?”

“... please.”

The demon’s voice was tiny enough to draw the blacksmith’s concern. He looked up from his work, and saw that the fire was flickering precariously, settled at the end of a single charred log; he'd dwindled down to a pathetic yellow flame no bigger than the ogre's hand. It was quite like Hajime to accidentally let a fire go out, especially while working; he immediately felt guilty for ignoring his forgelight for so long.

“Where do I get the wood?” he asked, setting the blade aside.

“Across the street –” Kyoutani paused, coughing up little clouds of black smoke, and groaned. “Kitagawa.”

“I’m going now.”

Kyoutani glowered at him miserably. “Hurry.”

After fiddling with the doorknob until the dial was set to blue, Hajime tore out the door. He shoved his way through villagers (some of whom he recognized) and forced himself to ignore the gasps that inevitably surrounded him. One gentlelady reached into her purse – perhaps she had a dagger keepsake, or a bottle of bloodsalt to throw in his face – while another swooned into her lover's trembling arms. Within seconds, the gentleman too had fainted dead away.

The ogre was almost amused.

Finally, Hajime caught sight of Old Man Irihata’s woodshop. He burst in without a second thought.

“I need firewood,” he yelled.

Apparently, the voice of an oni was as volatile as its fists – little carvings and wooden trinkets shook their way off of shelves, clattering away like fleeing mice, and Irihata’s poor apprentice fell off of his stool in sheer terror. Scrabbling off the ground a heartbeat later, his entire body shook as he bowed.

“W-welcome to Ir-r-rihata’s –”

“Wood,” Hajime repeated. The man squeaked, ducking back behind the counter and resurfacing a moment later with a bundle of chopped logs.

Hajime reached back into his pocket, fishing for coins...and came up with nothing.

Well...shit.  He hadn’t really thought that he’d need to carry money. (Although, in his defense – what shop would serve an oni in plain sight?)

“I don’t have anything on me,” Hajime explained, gritting his teeth in embarrassment. “Could I, er, start a tab, or…”

“Just take it! Take it and, ah, have a nice day!”

Although he doubted Irihata would have rolled over so easily, Hajime wasn’t about to argue with the clerk. With a bow, he ran back outside; it occurred to him, as he fiddled with the doorknob, that he probably looked sort of menacing, gnashing his teeth together with those enormous tusks in the picture. Alas – there was nothing to be done about it now.

“C’mon, open. Open up,” he snarled at the door, which finally clicked open and chimed upon his entry.

He called up to Kyoutani; he heard no response.

“Kyoutani?” he repeated nervously, thundering his way up the stairwell.

Hajime was surprised to find none other than Oikawa himself, hunched over the fireplace, holding a hand out over a growing flame.

“Perfect timing, Iwa-chan!” the wizard cheered. “Kyouken-chan is absolutely famished. Practically soot when I got here!”

“M’fine,” Kyoutani muttered. 

Hajime wordlessly set all but one of the logs down beside the hearth. He dug his claws into the heart of the wood and wrenched both halves apart, handing Kyoutani the split pieces. The fire grunted.

“So strong,” Oikawa gushed. “I’ll never have to pick up an axe again, thanks to Iwa-chan!”

Hajime scowled. “Don’t count on it.”

“So mean.”

“And where’s the wood for this thing, anyway?” Hajime crossed his arms. “Look, I don’t know what happens if Kyoutani goes out –”

“– I die, he dies,” Kyoutani hummed around a shard of kindling, gnawing it like a dog with a bone.

“Then you need to take better care of yourself, too, Trashykawa!” Hajime snapped.

Oikawa’s eyes brightened. “Why, Iwa-chan,” he said, “are you my mom?”

Before Hajime had the chance to make a reply – preferably with his fists – there was a knock at the door.

“King’s Square,” Kyoutani called out.

“Feh. I know who that is,” Oikawa huffed. “Don’t open the door, Kyou –”

The chime of the opening door interrupted the wizard, revealing none other than Yahaba standing on the other side.

The young man stood with his furled staff at his side, composed and self-assured, as though he were performing a routine duty. His attire was as formal as before, and his blazer almost seemed to sparkle – perhaps he had charmed the fabric before his arrival. He bowed, swiftly and crisply, before standing straight and facing Oikawa.

“Come to grovel again?” Oikawa lifted his chin, staring haughtily down his nose at the visitor. “My answer hasn’t changed, you know. And it won’t.”

“Maybe so. That doesn’t mean I won’t ask,” Yahaba answered evenly.

“It’s pointless.”

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"It is."

“Take me on as your apprentice.” Yahaba bowed again – more deeply, this time. “Senpai.”

“Nope. Not today, and not ever~!” he sang, giving the door a hearty shove and turning his back on his junior. “Now scram, Creampuff-chan.”

There was a loud bang, like the sound of a hammer slamming down on metal. Oikawa glanced over his shoulder, and Hajime peered to get a better look: the deadbolt lock had slid out, and was sticking out like a rather durable and misshapen finger stuck in the doorframe.

“Kyouken-chan,” Oikawa hissed, grasping the lock with both hands and trying to twist it to the left, “stop this, stop it, now …”

“Oikawa-senpai,” Yahaba’s voice rang from outside, “I also have a message for you.”

“Kyoutani, stop mucking around –”

“– it’s from the king of Karasuno.”

Oikawa’s hands fell from the door. He almost seemed taken aback. “Go on.”

“He requests your presence at the royal palace,” Yahaba reported, “so that Karasuno might enlist your help in their future conquests. All wizards in the Miyagi Prefecture are required to report to the palace, effective tomorrow. As a resident of both Kitagawa and King's Square, this decree applies doubly to you."

“Tomorrow,” Oikawa echoed stiffly.

“That’s right. Good day, then.” Yahaba bowed one final time; then, as the deadbolt retracted and the door swung shut, the wizard-in-training took his leave.

It took Oikawa a moment to move. He seemed to be troubled, Hajime thought – there was certainly something ominous about that last interaction, although it took him a moment to figure out what the issue was.

“Hey, Oikawa.”

“Hmm?”

“What’s the deal,” he frowned, “with the king of Karasuno calling meetings in the royal palace?”

“It’s exactly what it sounds like,” Oikawa sighed, finally sweeping up the stairs with an agitated stride. “Karasuno’s going to try to take Miyagi. Today, it seems.”

“They’re invading?” Hajime’s jaw dropped. "The entire country?"

“You called yourself a bodyguard, right?” Oikawa smiled slightly, with a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Finish up that icepick and be ready to go in an hour.”

“What the – this isn’t an icepick, dumbass!” Hajime exclaimed, muttering something under his breath.

“What’s that, Iwa-chan?”

“I said it’s a sword.”

“That? A sword?” Oikawa laughed lightly behind his hand. “Oh, Iwa-chan. I’ve been wondering where all that baseless brashness comes from! And now –”

“– oi –”

“– it turns out you can’t tell a sword from an icepick! It all makes sense!”

“I’m gonna kill you, Shittykawa,” Hajime announced, rolling up his sleeves as the wizard, still cackling, scampered up the stairs.

What an asshole.

He’s a brat to visitors...he’s vain and superficial...he doesn’t take care of his castle – which is probably stolen!

“He can’t even take care of himself. He needs all the help he can get.”

Hajime gave the tip of the sword another hit from his shoe, which was starting to get rather worn down at the bottom. It was a good thing that he was almost finished.

“That’ll be your job, then, sword. I guess.”

He struck the blade once more.

“Keep them all safe.”

With a final blow, Hajime decided that the rough, dent-covered, unattractive piece was done.

He held it up from the hearthstone, turning it over in his hands to get a better look. There were splotches of copper, iron, and nickel – he was sure that all the different metals would have made for a total disaster if it weren’t for Kyoutani, who seemed to just want to see things melt. Yet in spite of its messiness, the sword had that same feeling that Hajime got from his other pieces. It was some kind of vibration, like a singing voice – and he felt its humming more insistently than ever from the modest blade in his hands.

He glanced at the demon. “Hey.”

In his usual fashion, Kyoutani grunted.

“It...it isn’t that small,” Hajime shifted uncomfortably, “is it?”

The fire shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

“Hey, Oni-san!” Takeru called from the top of the stairs. “What happened to your hair?”

Startled, Hajime glanced down at his arms – and they were still bursting with unnatural amounts of fur. He lifted a hand to his neck – still thick with a greasy, matted mane.

“Huh.” Takeru seemed to study the ogre for a moment. “...never mind!” he decided. “Anyway, we’re almost at Star Lake – wanna see?”

In a few floor-shaking steps, Hajime had scaled the staircase and burst out onto the rotting balcony. He yanked Takeru off the wooden railing, which was already half crumbled, and leaned just far enough to see over the gables:

The water was a deeper indigo than Hajime had ever seen, pure and cold, nestled at the bottom of endless pine-dappled foothills. Hazy white clouds overshadowed the lake, and snowcaps lay off in the distance. It was still and tranquil without stagnation, and the air was cleaner than he could have dreamed.

“It’s…” Hajime tried to find a word that wasn’t embarrassing or inadequate, but ended up settling for “nice.”

“Yeah,” Takeru agreed, perching back on the railing. “We don’t come here that often. Just when Oikawa’s taunting the authorities – or trying to impress one of his girls.”

“Sounds like him,” Hajime grumbled.

A thrashing sound, like a scurrying misplaced rodent, interrupted his thoughts. Hajime leaned over the edge of the balcony, straining to see where the noise was coming from. At first, he thought that a collapsed piece of the castle was rattling around in an abandoned doorway; then, he recognized the gnarled wood.

"Is that Shallot-Head?"

"Who?" Takeru dangled himself off the railing to get a better look – and almost fell when a strong gust of wind swung him with a little too much force.

Hajime grabbed the wizard's nephew by the collar of his shirt, pulling him up easily. "Stop being a dumbass," he growled.

"Okay, but who is it?" Takeru pressed.

"Just a scarecrow I met before coming here." Hajime grabbed the errant branch and pulled firmly, straining to wriggle the scarecrow's snagged arm out of one of the castle's many holes. At last, the arm sprang free; with an effortless hoist, he set the pole atop the railing.

Takeru watched with wide eyes. "Is he a demon?"

"Probably," Hajime said. Shallot-Head hopped a couple of times, perhaps in gratitude, before leaping away to the castle's sturdier rooftops.

They stood there for a couple of minutes – Takeru still leaning dangerously over the edge of the balcony, Shallot-Head balancing cheerfully and hopping from shingle to shingle, and Hajime enjoying the wind ripping at his face – before something occurred to him.

“Kyoutani!” he shouted, sticking his head inside. “Kyoutani, are you the one moving this thing?”

Coming from the hearth below, Hajime barely caught a sullen “Duh.”

“That’s not half bad!” he declared. “Guess you’re not such a weak demon after all.”

A huge huff of steam hissed out of the chimneys and blew into the house. “F-fuck – shut up!” Kyoutani sputtered.

A lighthearted laugh announced Oikawa’s presence downstairs. “What’s this? Iwa-chan, you’ve turned my fire blue~!”

Hajime paced down the stairwell. “You’re ready to go, then?” he asked.

“Yep. Don’t crash the castle while we’re gone, Kyouken-chan!”

Oikawa waited until Hajime was at his side before turning the doorknob twice to the right. The dial flicked to red – King’s Square – and the door chimed, sounding more foreboding than friendly on this particular occasion.

“Stay close,” Oikawa muttered, pushing the door open, “and don’t get carried away.”

Chapter Text

The moment they stepped out into the street, Hajime could feel that something was off.

Even though it was the middle of the day, everything was shadowed in dusklight. The clouds hung heavy and black, smothering the city in a palpable shade, and the talk of the city had grown quiet and tense as though there were suddenly nothing to say.

Hajime sniffed. “Rain…?”

But it wasn’t. The air was dry, and smelled of burning tar and ink.

“Karasuno,” Oikawa answered in a low voice. “Watch. Up there.”

He pointed to the palace rooftop, steepled with screaming eagle gargoyles and capped with rose gold. Above, a swirling eye of stormclouds had gathered, heaving like an overstuffed belly, sinking lower, and lower, until –

Splat.

The cloud split, oozing dark liquid like an gargantuan bubble of oil that had just been popped. The contents spilled over every inch of the palace, washing over every wall and orifice, leaving behind nothing but black – indeed, a black so dark that it sucked the light out of everything near it. And at the peak of it all roosted the gargoyles, stained such an elegant onyx that they almost resembled…

“...the Crows,” Hajime muttered.

“It seems that Creampuff-chan was right after all,” Oikawa grimaced. “Which means he must be here…”

Hajime narrowed his eyes. “Who’s ‘he’?”

“Never you mind.” Oikawa waved dismissively. “Just another irrelevant brat. Anyway, I think it’s time we wreaked some havoc. Don’t you agree, Iwa-chan~?”

Without waiting for his companion’s answer, Oikawa lifted his outreached hand with slow intent, fingers splayed in stiff pairs and quivering with force. The wind rose around him, catching his ruby earrings in little gusts and snagging at his hair, and the wizard’s eyes sparked with something close to cruelty.

“I mean, honestly,” he glowered, raising his voice, “this is the shoddiest last-minute production I’ve ever seen. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times:

“If you’re going to hit it, hit it ‘til it breaks.”

Oikawa slashed across the heavens, drawing forth a violent bubbling from within the black thunderheads – until, in one dramatic burst, the shade fell away to brilliant blue skies and white clouds. A few townsfolk leapt up and clapped with delight, while tiny black flecks flitted against the light like gnats, panicking from far above.

“As I thought. An aerial invasion.” Oikawa clenched his arm. He almost looked pained, and –

“What happened to your hand?” Hajime demanded, grabbing at his palm for a closer look.

The wizard’s fingers were strangely cold and unyielding, and distinctly inhuman. The digits had fused together in awkward pairs, splayed like tongs, and felt unusually stiff and gummy, as though they’d been glazed over with a coat of black cartilage.

“Oikawa –”

“No time for that,” Oikawa warned cheerfully. “We’re the next targets, Iwa-chan!”

Sure enough, trails of Crows were beginning to swarm in their direction. A terrible rumble, the sound of a thousand wings beating at once, grew louder with every second. Hajime’s hand clenched instinctively.

“Well, come on,” Oikawa urged, pulling Hajime along, mutated hand clasped in oversized talons.

Again, Hajime was reminded of the horrible winding alleyways that seemed to plague every township; King’s Square was different in that its alleys were full of functional doorways, rather than bland walls that all looked the same, but he nevertheless felt like a caged rodent on the run. Behind them, the beating of wings grew ever louder, and Hajime had the horrible feeling of being backed into a corner by an enemy with bigger eyes and higher ground.

“We’re coming up to a dead end,” Oikawa said. “We’re going to have to duke it out. Stay on your toes.”

Hajime glanced behind them. “We’re outnumbered?”

“Oh, by a landslide,” the wizard replied without a trace of concern.

“You’ve got a plan.”

“No,” Oikawa admitted, “but these rookies are nothing I can’t handle.”

As they came to a stop in the three-walled, windowless corner, Hajime drew his sword easily out of his belt loop. With only the most marginal experience in actually wielding one of his weapons, the blacksmith crouched into what he hoped was a ready position, both hands gripping the unwrapped handle so tightly it hurt his fingers.

“Straighten your back, Bodyguard-chan,” Oikawa snickered. He glanced over – the wizard had extended his arms and spread his fingers into a fan behind his distorted hand. Some obscure magical symbol, Hajime was sure.

Above them, in messy formation, the Crows swooped into skin-ripping dives, wings sweeping into light black cloaks that billowed behind them. One by one, they hit the ground running, little streaks of feathery black that winked with silver – sunlight, catching on their blades.

“Don’t move,” Oikawa ordered quietly, without glancing away from the charge. “Wait for them to come to us.”

“It’s a trap!” shouted a Crow from the back. Only a couple of his companions seemed to hear.

“Just a little more.” It was impossible not to notice how Oikawa’s eyes, too, snagged little gleams of light.

Please don’t fall apart on me, Hajime silently implored his sword. Just get us through this.

“Stop!” the Crow shouted again, his voice an intimidating boom.

Get us home.

Oikawa grinned.

“Too late.”

Like a pair of opening gates, Oikawa’s hands broke away from each other, and everything erupted: cracks raced down the alleyway, splitting the ground into slivers, and gnarling vines poured out and over the battalions, winding in between and over and around their feet, barring their advance with thorny walls and shutting the sky far out of sight. Woody cords stuck out at every angle, casting faint woven shadows within the shaded enclosure.

“Geh, you punks!” spat one of the Crows, hacking his way through the fibers of the nearest stem.

“Shut up!” It was the man from earlier – probably the commander, if Hajime had to guess.

Oikawa regarded his work with pride. “One more round and they’ll be boxed up like cargo,” he declared.

It was then that Hajime noticed the way Oikawa was bent a little too far forward, breathing a little too heavily, and – what the – his arms. Little tufts of fur stuck out between crisscrossed scales, with skin still falling away in fleshy petals around clefted, delicate hooves, so far gone from hands that Hajime couldn’t even conceive of the transformation.

“You’ve gone too far, Shittykawa…”

“You don’t know anything.” Oikawa’s voice had taken on a cold, frenzied edge.

“You need to stop.”

“I need to finish what I’ve started.”

“Look,” Hajime said, “I don’t know –”

“– exactly. You don’t know anything, Iwa-chan,” he repeated, “and I say once more.”

Hajime had been thirteen when his father’s anvil went unexpectedly missing.

The eldest Iwaizumi had been in the midst of a last minute commission for a rather ornate spade – more ceremonial than utilitarian, by the patron’s design. Yet the hammer seemed to have been somehow misplaced.

“Blast,” his father had cursed. He was already short on time, destined to work for days straight, with only a handful of hours to spare for eating, sleeping, and other frivolous matters.

Hajime had watched his father combing through the workshop, feeling out every crevice with ancient knobby fingers that were never still. Like strings in eternal vibrato, they trembled, soured and strained from overuse.

“And –  now!”

At their commander’s bid, the Crows had plunged their knives into the heart of the vinewood in unison. It was at first unclear to Hajime what they were doing – but then he noticed the color leaking out of the herb cover, wilting from green to brown to a dark, charred grey in little patches across the overgrowth.

Oikawa narrowed his eyes. “How troublesome…”

Again, he raised his arms, forehead scrunched with painfully intense concentration. The wind seemed to pick up, ruffling the little clumps of red-crusted fur on the wizard’s arms, and Hajime was filled with the most horrible sense of dread.

“... Hajime.”

The same sense of dread had settled in the boy’s stomach that day, when his father called his name from the hearth. 

There were missiles and bombs and hexes in the world, Hajime knew: all weapons of mass destruction. And then there were the slower, subtler weapons of self-destruction, hiding in desks and drawers, forges and factories – or in fingerscraped holes in the ground, left in futile hopes that they might be forgotten. 

“Do me a favor, Hajime,” his father had said, “and bring back the hammer you buried in the garden.”

With the same sense of duty, Hajime obeyed. It was the heaviest thing he'd ever carried.

Shnk.

Like the shadows from the clouds had seemed to suck in the surrounding light, and the knives of the Crows had seemed to suck the life from the surrounding greenery – so, too, did the unexpected sound seem to suck all the air and movement out of their surroundings. Every Crow had frozen; the alleyway thicket was perfectly still.

The tension of spellwork, too, had vanished. Oikawa’s arms still hung dumbly in front of him, but his face was slack with shock, and his hoof-hands wavered with an uncertainty that was quite unlike him.

Hajime wasn’t sure what had happened, for a moment. But then –

“Nice back attack, Asahi-san!!”

– he saw the ivory hilt, buried in Oikawa’s back like a broken bone.

One year later, his father had retired.

The nerves in his hands had been worn beyond repair. His fingers simply would not bend.

The hands never stopped moving. In a perfectly still room, the smith’s unsteady hands would still be wobbling up-and-down, as though haunted by the tasks they would never perform.

Hajime’s hand flew to his sword before he realized what was happening.

Around them, the Crows had begun to close in, easily swiping away the remains of the crumbling vines. A couple of the hooded figures licked their lips in anticipation; others swaggered into a twenty foot range, blades keen in their seasoned grips.

Nothing went through Hajime’s mind when the tension broke into battle. His eyes tracked the bodies and blades, and his hands and feet went where they were supposed to go, but it was most strange, indeed, that Hajime thought about nothing at all.

A peculiar sort of calm had come over him. For the first time, he felt completely self-assured. He knew with perfect certainty that his sword would go where it needed to go; that his arms would follow; that his strength would prove sufficient; and that, in the end, they would live.

“Iwa-chan –”

“– that’s enough from you,” Hajime snapped, sword clanging against – one, two, three, four – five others in turn. It was all he could do to match them, blow for blow, although somehow he and his makeshift sword were managing to do so with perfect accuracy and decent power.

“Stop mucking around and circle up!” the commander yelled. Although the man’s expression was veiled by his cloak, Hajime caught a glimpse of furious spittle.

They may be hooligans, he thought with something close to amusement, but they’re still Karasuno’s elite squad – probably on orders to kill any meddlers. We need a way out…

“Close in!”

At their commander’s order, the Crows stalked forward, slow movements quickly shifting into a full on running charge. Further off, other black-cloaked squads touched down with featherlight ease, flooding the alleyway in endless waves with no gaps or openings in sight.

Come on, Hajime thought, looking desperately from side to side. In the corner of his eye, he saw Oikawa scuffing marks into the cobblestones as best he could, with periodic explosions of plant growth tripping the front lines of Crows. Little tufts of fur and scales fluttered to the ground with every spell, as light and lifeless as falling leaves.

The ogre brandished his sword. Looks like I’ll have to fight after all.

He tensed, bundling all the strength he could muster into his legs. A warcry bubbled up in his chest, and he couldn’t help but unleash a roar as he sprang into a run –

– and stumbled forward, landing gracelessly on his ass.

He’d felt his sandal catch on the uneven ground ( damn roads ) and had managed to catch himself for the most part, but –

Sword. Where’d the sword go?

Hajime scrabbled to his feet. He hadn’t heard the sword hit the ground, so he wasn’t sure what direction to look in. Nothing metallic seemed to be anywhere near him, the Crows were getting awfully close, shit, we’re all going to die because I can’t even handle a sword, and then:

There!

The flimsy blade was sticking straight out of the ground like a flag, wedged between a pair of cobblestones.

Gritting his teeth, Hajime ran ahead and tore it out of the road. Vinework wove itself into a wall around him as Crows came within striking range, half-dead stalks intercepting blows meant for him.

“You’re too far away!” Oikawa shouted. “I can’t hold them off much longer like this!”

Hajime opened his mouth to reply...and let his attention shift to a cold sensation at his foot. He looked down and saw that one of the cobblestones was rattling in place, spewing little traces of an ominous something, cold and dark.

Cautiously, he reached down (ignoring Oikawa’s indignant screaming) and picked up the stone to find...nothing. A little hollow of nothingness in the middle of the road, a void within the maelstrom of spells and swords surrounding him.

Dropping his sword, Hajime knelt and began to tear the stones out, one by one, as the pitch-black hole grew in size.

“Take this, ya punks!”

A curved knife flew through the air, set to bury itself in Hajime’s face –

– and was intercepted by a column of white-hot fire. Knocked skywards, the blade began to melt midair, splashing into a pile of charred metal droppings. Hajime looked back over his shoulder, wordless and slightly bewildered.

“Well, since you wouldn’t come to me, ” Oikawa hissed, “I came to you.”

The wizard’s cloak was stained with red and purple, with little curls of smoke rising out of the ragged hole in the back. Folds of fabric draped over his arms; Hajime feared they looked even worse than before. But somehow, despite his blanched face and the sweat running down his neck, Oikawa still managed to look...dignified. His head was high and his stride was leisurely; indeed, his poise would have been flawless if not for the occasional falter in his step.

“You look like shit. Listen, is that,” Hajime motioned to the blackening hole in the ground, “dangerous?”

Oikawa took a step forward, bending over to get a better look. “Is that…” He sucked in a breath. “How on earth did this get here?”

Hajime grabbed the other man’s shoulder. “Is it dangerous?” he repeated urgently.

“Well, no – probably not in itself, anyway –”

Having heard enough, Hajime shoved Oikawa into the opening and promptly jumped in after him.

"I don't understand, Yurie. Why does he keep doing it?"

Hajime hid in the comfortable darkness of his arms, burying his head as firmly against them as he could.

"He knows it's killing him...at this rate, he won't even be able to hold an anvil," he muttered. "So why won't he just stop? Or slow down, at least?"

His sister hummed.

"Well," she thought aloud, "I think some people are just like that, Haji-chan."

"Like what?"

"You know. They'd rather burn themselves out, trying to shine," she said, "than be called lackluster."

“...an…”

Hajime felt like a scribble on a blank piece of paper.

“...chan…?”

He strained, for a moment, to make sense of himself. He scrunched up what he thought were – yes, those were his eyes, and – ah, he could feel his face. And those were his hands…

“Iwa-chan?”

Hajime felt himself come a little more into being. He forced his eyes open.

“Iwa-chan!”

Oikawa’s face was entirely too close to his own, so close that Hajime could feel the warmth and moisture of the other man’s breath on his skin. The sensation was kind of gross. He felt hands leave his face and grab his own – talons, he remembered…

Then he felt his body solidify, and felt himself drop back into it.

He hadn’t realized what it felt like to have a body until the feeling was returning to him at full force, heavy and full of substance. Air overwhelmed him. He couldn’t get enough.

“Easy.” Oikawa’s grip was almost painful. “Thought I lost you.”

“Thought you said this wasn’t supposed to be dangerous,” Hajime managed to retort.

“Well, I didn’t think you’d jump into it!” Oikawa exclaimed.

Hajime looked around them and saw nothing but darkness in every direction. He had the faint sensation of moving, but he couldn’t tell what direction they were drifting in, and he certainly had no idea of where they were going.

“What is this place, anyway?”

“It’s nowhere,” Oikawa replied. “Quite literally. If you don’t have a sense of direction, it’s easy to drift apart.”

“Then how are you…?”

“Look here.”

Oikawa waggled a finger with a dark iron ring at the base. Blue bubbled up from the middle, like a fountain, then shot forward in a jet of faint fire.

“If we follow that,” Oikawa explained, “we’ll find the door.”

With that, the wizard and his ogre began to walk – slowly, a trudge at first, and then a stroll – a little tense, but easier with every step. Perhaps it was that Oikawa’s confidence became a little more believable with every stride they took, or perhaps the memory of nothingness grew a little more distant in Hajime’s mind.

In any case, the door was not slow to appear, and it was not long at all before they were stepping through it.

Chapter Text

Aoba Castle, dimly lit by candles dangling precariously from their sconces, could have been the sun itself for all Hajime knew.

The duo fell into the stairwell, weight and substance sinking back into their bodies as they stepped out of the void. Hajime scrunched his eyes shut – the candlelights seared patterns into his vision, entirely overwhelming after his trip through darkness. He managed to relax as, behind them, the door swung closed, and moments later he heard the deadbolt slide into place.

As his eyes adjusted, the oni remembered Oikawa’s wound.

“Oi,” he barked, kneeling beside the shape on the ground. “Are you okay? Can you stand?”

The wizard paused in responding.

“Oikawa —”

“— I’ll be fine.”

Clutching onto Hajime’s arm for support, Oikawa heaved himself up.

The purplish stain on the sorcerer’s back had grown, Hajime noted, and his face was pinched with obvious pain. There were no puddles or dark bloody spreads — just a handful of spots and smears, like little red brushstrokes across the wooden floor. The wound, though deep, didn’t seem fatal...at the same time, Oikawa wasn’t at all in good condition.

“Come on. Walk,” Hajime urged. Carefully, he wrapped an arm around Oikawa’s waist, and hefted him to a seat in front of the fireplace. Which hissed — Kyoutani was glowering at them.

Hajime handed the fire a log, holding back an exasperated huff. “Everything alright while we were gone?”

Kyoutani shrugged. “No trouble,” he said sullenly, “but if there was, the knife in the back wouldn’t have helped things.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Worried about me, Kyouken-chan?” Oikawa laughed weakly. Kyoutani spat a couple of embers in reply.

“Lean forward,” Hajime ordered. The wizard complied; peeling away his cloak, Hajime found a disgusting crust of blackened blood around the wound. He gave Oikawa’s shirt an experimental tug, and found it wet and stiff to touch.

Oikawa swatted his hand away. “Leave it.”

“Let me see it —”

“Leave it,” he repeated more forcefully. “I told you, it’s fine.”

Hajime’s brows furrowed. “It’s a knife wound, Shittykawa. It’s obviously not —”

“It’s nothing I can’t fix.”

“Don’t,” Hajime began, but he could already see the faint gold magic bubbling beneath Oikawa’s shirt, spilling out of the gash as it began knitting itself back together. Crisscrosses of scales split open little patches of his back like a rash, sticking out at ugly angles around the half-closed wound. As the magic fizzled away, Oikawa slumped back in his chair, breathing deeply with exhaustion.

“Oikawa…”

There was more Hajime wanted to say. He wanted to yell at Oikawa, to tell him that he was destroying himself; he wanted to point out Kyoutani, and how the demon was hurting, too; he wanted to punch a hole in the wall to snap Oikawa out of whatever funk he was in. He wanted to find the flippant, confident Oikawa again...to bury his despair, to burn it away…

The front door chimed before Hajime could say any of those things.

“Tooru!” Takeru cried, scrambling up the stairs two at a time. “Are you okay? Oni-san, is he okay?”

“For the last time, I’m fine,” Oikawa groaned.

“I thought you were dead!” his nephew exclaimed. “And you don’t look fine. You’ve got that scaly-crap all over you this time!”

Oikawa frowned. “Is there any on my face? Oh, gods, let my face be alright…”

“Nah, there’s not really any on your face.”

“Thank heavens.” Oikawa grew quiet, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on his chin.

(It was peculiar, Hajime thought, how incredibly self-defeating Oikawa somehow managed to be. He cared about his face, yet rubbed his oily fingers all over it; he showed compassion and concern, then undermined his relationships with isolation and petty insults; and then he accepted help in passing, only to reject it in an hour of actual crisis. It was a phenomenon Hajime found both perplexing and frustrating.)

But then, something grave seemed to dawn on the wizard, as his eyes grew wide and tense.

“Takeru,” he began, “what exactly have the city-dwellers been saying about this...altercation?”

“They’ve been...uh…” Takeru shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, it hasn’t been so great. It’s like, no one really knows what happened, but…some people, eh...”

“Spit it out,” Oikawa demanded.

“Some people are saying you ran away because you knew you were gonna lose.”

Oikawa was quiet again, for a moment more; then, he made the most pitiful noise Hajime had ever heard from a human.

“Oikawa —”

“I’m ruined,” he cut off Takeru, “absolutely ruined, forever. My reputation is destroyed, my name is sullied — gods, I’ll never be able to live this down…”

“Listen, Oikawa,” Takeru tried again, but his uncle was having none of it.

“I’ll bet they’re calling me a yellow-bellied coward right now,” he said remorsefully, “and who can blame them? I’m a loser —”

“— hey —”

“— ran out with my tail between my legs —”

“— stop, Shittykawa —”

“— no match for Ushiwaka —”

“— shut up —”

“— I should have died!” he wailed. “I should have beaten those disgusting Crows to the ground, all of them — or I should have died trying! Better to be remembered a hero than scorned and forgotten, like this…”

“Stop being stupid for a second,” Hajime growled.

“I give up.” Oikawa hung his head in his hands dramatically. “I see no point in living as a nobody.”

The castle moaned. Shadows from the cracks between planks of wood slowly inched out, stretching into ominous fingers across the floors and walls. A couple of candles hissed, extinguished, soon followed by the rest, and chairs started shifting where they stood.

“What’s happening?” Hajime stared, backing away from a creeping shape on the wall.

“He’s calling the spirits of darkness,” Takeru explained. “I saw him do this once before, when a girl dumped him.”

The wood’s creaking grew more insistent. Nervously, Hajime stepped back towards the defeated slump.

“Come on, Oikawa,” he gritted his teeth, “you’re not a nobody, everyone in the city knows who you are. And the Crows aren’t going anywhere. We can give ‘em hell tomorrow, right?” He reached tentatively for Oikawa’s shoulder —

Hajime drew his mangled hand back at once, repulsed by the thick green sludge dripping from his talons, and the shoulder, and every pore on Oikawa’s body, seeping through his clothes and onto the floor. The man’s eyes were glazed over, desolate and unseeing, and the sight of it was all too much.

“...you think you’ve got it bad?” Hajime said, voice cracking. “I’ve never once been somebody in my entire life!”

And, in one miserable burst, he stormed out the door and into the Wastes.

It was raining when Hajime stepped into the hazy plains; ahead, the surface of Star Lake quivered with raindrops. The dripping landscape was peaceful, and lonely.

He paused at the foot of the half-rotten steps, feeling terribly uncertain about everything. He began to walk, run, and then he was tearing through the grass, sending clumps of mud flying behind him, and the harder he ran the less he felt like he could stop.

Eventually, he did. He dug his sandals into the gritty shoreline and looked up at the grey, unremarkable sky.

“Forget Ushiwaka and Karasuno,” he choked, “I can’t even protect Oikawa from himself.”

Rain dribbled down his face, running into his eyes and slicking his fur against his body.

“What kind of bodyguard — what kind of brute am I?”

His chest heaved, and he cried.

Hajime stood there for a few minutes, feeling the rain pushing him down, drenching and persistent, and suffering with the weight of his shame and insufficiencies. But then he felt his load lighten, ever so slightly. The rain — it was still falling around him, he heard — but he couldn’t feel it anymore. He wiped his eyes.

“...thanks, Shallot-Head,” he swallowed.

The scarecrow must have come when he wasn’t paying attention. He was holding an umbrella over Hajime’s head – and getting drenched himself, he noticed, although a scarecrow probably didn’t feel much of a difference whether rain or shine.

Hajime smiled waveringly. “You know, for such an awful vegetable,” he remarked, “you’re pretty great.”

Shallot-Head hopped a couple of times. The grin drawn on his face seemed bigger than ever.

“Oni-san!”

Hajime turned back to the castle at Takeru’s scream, and saw the boy racing down to the lake shore.

“Oni-san,” Takeru repeated urgently, gasping for breath, “you’ve gotta help. Tooru looks bad, like, really bad. Like, maybe-even-dead-bad…”

The ogre sucked in a breath and grunted. “Alright.”

He’d almost forgotten: his job wasn’t over.

The castle stank upon entry. It was like the smell of skin peeling off of a sunburn, infused with the stench of pus and mold. Hajime wanted to vomit.

Still, he walked back to the chair, the hearth, and the sluggish man in a heap between the two. Ooze was beginning to slather Kyoutani’s domain; the fire was perched at the tip of a log, glaring disgustedly at the sickly green mess.

“He’s not actually dead, right?” Takeru asked bluntly.

“Pfft. Not a chance,” Hajime assured him. “He’s just throwing a tantrum. C’mon, help me get him upstairs.”

Things had been relatively painless from there: Hajime lugged the wizard’s limp, gooey form up the stairs, dumped him unceremoniously into the tub, and left the rest to Takeru. After that, he’d gone to work cleaning the fireplace, soiling a good four or five towels before it was reasonably dry.

“Gross,” he grumbled, picking at the sticky green chunks stuck in his fur.

He looked witheringly at the trail of slime on the ground. It was half hardened already, and would probably be a pain to scrape off later...at the same time, he really didn’t want to deal with it. Laundry would be awful enough as it was.

Oikawa can clean his own damn mess,  he decided.

...but that smell really is awful.  

Hajime didn’t have much time to ponder before the door chimed, clicked, and easily swung open. He looked over at Kyoutani, who seemed to be avoiding his gaze. The demon almost looked...embarrassed?

“Hellooo?”

Yahaba’s head poked up out of the stairwell.

“Ah, Iwaizumi-san!” he greeted. “Just came by to see — what is that smell?”

“Oikawa,” Kyoutani growled.

“I won’t ask.” Yahaba made to join them, carefully avoiding the gunk on the floor, and sat on the edge of the fireplace, leaning his staff up against the wall. “Someone really should clean that up, though.”

Hajime rested his chin on a taloned fist. “It’s gonna take a lot of towels,” he sighed.

“Well, you shouldn’t be using towels. Don’t you have a mop?”

Hajime looked bewildered. “I...don’t know?”

“Really, this house is filthy. I swear — does no one know basic household maintenance skills, these days?”

Neither ogre nor demon replied.

“Look.” Yahaba grabbed his staff and flipped it upside-down; the gnarled bough narrowed into a sleek wooden handle, and a stringy head fell out the bottom. He thrust it in Hajime’s face. “Take this and wipe up that —  whatever it is, before it gets any harder to clean. I’ll start on those windows…”

Hajime reluctantly took the mop. “Don’t we need a bucket, or something?”

“It’s self-cleaning,” Yahaba declared proudly.

Thus, Hajime vanquished the last of the slime — “We’re not sweeping, Iwaizumi-san, you should be wiping side-to-side,” — with little issue.

Yahaba went to town on the rest. He started by attacking the windows; then he saw the countertops and accidentally conjured a scrub-brush; at some point, a filing cabinet walked itself through the front door; and by the time Takeru came back downstairs, all the crumbs and wrappers on the floor were levitating and zapping away to who-knows-where.

“Uh…”

“Hey.” Hajime flicked the awestruck boy when he didn’t get a response. “Takeru. How is he?”

“Fine. He wants milkbread,” Takeru reported.

Hajime scowled. “Like hell,” he said, “am I getting that brat any milkbread.”

“I got your damn milkbread.”

Hajime threw the package at Oikawa’s bed. He heard a squeal of delight.

“Iwa-chan! Thank you~!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hajime rolled his eyes, “just focus on getting your strength back. The city needs you.”

“Yeah.” Oikawa sobered a bit at that.

“It’s quiet right now,” he continued. “Shiratorizawa launched an assault at five in the morning, but Karasuno drove them off. Things were pretty bad — all the shops in King’s Square were empty when I got there.”

“Iwa-chan, are you a thief?”

“I paid!” he snapped indignantly.

“I know,” said Oikawa, resting his head on his knees. He looked pensive. “I really can be an idiot, sometimes, huh.”

“Well,” Hajime frowned, “yeah, you can. So can I.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got a pea-brain, so it’s not your fault.” Oikawa giggled nervously at the ogre’s expression. “Kidding, kidding~!”

“Whatever. Anyway,” he resumed, “Yahaba’s been downstairs since yesterday. Apparently the palace personnel switched hands with the palace itself, and he’s been sent to deliver a message.”

“Kyoutani let him in again?” Oikawa groaned. “Let me guess — that insufferable brat’s at it again, trying to lure me to the palace with an official summons. As if he can order me around, like some bed-servant! The audacity...”

“That’s the gist of it.” With no chairs in the room, Hajime sat himself firmly on the ground. “So who’s this ‘brat’ you keep talking about?”

“That’s none of your —”

“— it is my business,” Hajime interjected, “since it’s clearly impacting your judgment, and making you act like a reckless idiot.”

Oikawa studied his quilted covers. “I know.”

“Well?”

“There’s a higher-up from Karasuno,” Oikawa replied, “who I find quite disagreeable. That’s all you need to know.”

Hajime growled. “That’s not helpful at all, dumbass.”

He sighed, when Oikawa didn’t respond. “You can rely on us, you know. You don’t have to do everything yourself…”

Oikawa was silent for a few moments more. Then, his head shot up.

“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed. “Iwa-chan! You’ll go to the palace for me!”

“What?” Hajime crossed his arms. “That’s ridiculous. I can’t do everything for you, either —”

“— it’s brilliant,” Oikawa cut him off. “Brilliant! You go to the palace, disguised as a messenger, and tell them I’ve already gone to work for Shiratorizawa!”

“I can’t —”

“— bwa-ha-ha!” he laughed. “That’ll show him! Just imagine the look on his grimy little face! Oh, the thought of it — I’ll have to come, too.”