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The kagutsuchi moon of this world heightened the cravings of demons; they became aggressive, violent, and bloodthirsty as it waxed, weaker and submissive as it waned. Naoki was not immune to its influence, for he too grew hostile as the moon waxed fuller in the sky, and timid as it waned.
To avoid…what happened during the last full moon, Naoki tried to come up with a solution. Gouto rode atop Raidou’s shoulder, and the two walked side by side through the ruined city.
Naoki started recounting the events of the last full moon: Raidou had stopped him during his rampage—Raidou then helpfully reminded him that he also nearly died in the process, and that he didn’t really stop him.
“Yeah but… you did something… and eventually I figured out how to use healing magic… It worked out eventually,” Naoki appealed.
“You dislocated my shoulder, I’d like to avoid re-locating it again.” Raidou jabbed.
Naoki frowned. “Yes, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, okay?”
Raidou raised an eyebrow at him.
Naoki looked away sheepishly, then started again, “Okay…but like…what if we got ahead of it?” His eyes avoided Raidou’s but they sought his input nonetheless.
Raidou could tell he felt awful about the whole ordeal. Even a month later, his tattoos would darken to indigo when recounting the memory. The demi-fiend was an unwilling participant in the rage induced haze, incapable of rational thought and blinded by fury. Yet when his vision cleared again… His humanity could still be found among the smoldering embers, something worth digging through the ash for when his infernal rage subsided.
Raidou tried to meet him where he was.
“…How?” Raidou’s shoulder ached, and his mind immediately foresaw failure but his heart tried to strategize a means for victory.
“What made me stop?” Naoki asked.
“Maybe…Was it when I stabbed you?”
Naoki’s eyes widened, then he grimaced. He put his arms up in an X in front of him. “Please do NOT stab me again!” He begged.
Raidou closed his eyes in thought and continued, “No…it was after that.”
He remembered the scene.
Gouto clawing and biting Naoki’s legs as the demi-fiend’s feral face drew closer with pupils slitted and fangs bared. Raidou’s shoulders were pressed firmly against the ground by the demi-fiend, and his right shrieked in pain from the pressure. His pistol had been knocked away earlier, and it sat several feet away. He fumbled for his knife with his left arm, and once he grasped it, struck the demi-fiend’s nose with his head. The demi-fiend screeched, and let go of him to grab its nose. He whipped the knife out, then stabbed the demi-fiend in its torso. The knife easily sliced through, and he twisted the knife as if his life depended on it.
Human blood poured onto him, and it was warm in spite of the fiend's ice-cold skin.
The demi-fiend froze. Raidou heard his breath loudly coming in gasps, the demon’s chest neither rose nor fell. It remained still, only blinking at him through glowing stitted yellow eyes.
Then it hauled him off the ground, hissing through bared fangs. Raidou felt claws begin to dig into his back and he cried out, expecting the worst. Then… he was being held? The claws’ advance down his back stopped, and their owners pulled him closer.
Was it trying to crush him? Get in close to attack? Sure, the hold was almost unbearably tight, enough to where it was nearly a struggle to breathe, but the intent to maim wasn’t there anymore. The blood lust had dissipated and the air felt clearer. It could’ve ripped through his ribs easily with how sharp they were; the claws had already ripped through his jacket and shirt, and it stung where they had torn into him. He felt blood start to soak his shirt where the claws had raked, but they advanced no further.
Raidou wasn’t sure how long they were in that position, but at some point the demi-fiend relaxed his hold. He was dropped onto his shoulder, and immediately blacked out from scorching white pain. He ended up waking hours later being carried Naoki’s arms, with an angry Gouto walking reluctantly by his heels.
Naoki had continued while he was lost in his thoughts,“…But when I held you… it… calmed me down…? And I dunno…it just snapped me out of it. We could try that?”
Raidou stopped dead in his tracks, and Naoki walked right past him. Gouto had made a hacking, coughing noise and nearly fell off Raidou’s shoulder.
Naoki looked around to see why he’d stopped, only to see nothing. He circled around to look at Raidou, who was blushing furiously, looking away, and trying to hide his expression by pulling down his cap and covering his mouth. Despite his efforts, his red cheeks were still very visible.
Naoki realized he basically just asked a demon hunter to cuddle with him and felt his own cheeks burn.
Actually……But wait…if he said…yes??? Naoki remembered his assessment of Raidou the first time saw him: beautiful. Light pink flashed in his vision. He looked at his arms. His tattoos were shining a brilliant pastel pink.
Naoki began nervously tapping his pointer fingers together as his eyes repeatedly darted up to and away from Raidou’s, which were looking far off into the distance.
Naoki started to feel silly for suggesting it, even though he thought it was a good plan. Well… a good plan for him? Maybe a great plan? Anyway… what else could they do? They didn’t have enough time before the full moon, and it was fast approaching. They couldn’t just go their separate ways for a few days either, since this world wasn’t safe enough for either of them to be traveling alone, regardless how capable they both were individually.
“Absolutely not,” protested Gouto once he regained his balance and stopped making the sputtering, coughing noise. He looked up, “Raidou, you can’t possibly…” He groaned, “Please don’t tell me you’re considering this.”
Raidou was deep in thought, trying both to regain his composure and consider the logistics of the proposition. The full moon would be upon them in a few days, and sure, last time the demi-fiend nearly tore his arm off.
But the other time the demi-fiend was alone during the full moon… He shuddered, remembering the broken body he found the next day. The demi-fiend blinded by a hunger he didn’t need to sate had challenged another being far beyond his skill, and Raidou found him after many starved fey and fiends had descended to pick his spirit clean. He remembered how much blood there was and shuddered. It bothered him greatly, then and now, that the demi-fiend bled red human blood.
Raidou didn't want to see him like that again, didn't want to have to bandage him up again. He didn’t want to hear him cry and wail, hallucinate from pain and beg for forgiveness from people that no longer existed.
Raidou straightened up. He felt the remainders of scabs on his back scrape his shirt, nearly healed from the month prior. He pursed his lips together and peeked out from under his hat.
Naoki’s pupils were incredibly round, and his tattoos kept pulsing a deep, anxious orange. This wasn’t someone he would call a friend…but Naoki was nowhere close to an enemy. Anyway, this demon was too powerful an ally to dismiss on a whim. He relented.
“Gouto, there…there isn’t a better option,” Raidou carefully said. The demi-fiend’s tattoos turned a bright, bright green. His eyes were shining and he was obviously trying to not smile.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Gouto proceeded to moan and nag about all the possible ways this could go horribly wrong. Raidou and Naoki kept walking silently after that, avoiding eye contact. They carefully talked around the topic for the next two days, but the moon began growing fuller in the sky again. Naoki began throwing harder punches, and his fuse to teases became shorter and shorter. He’d snap at gently said remarks, then immediately apologize afterwards. Naoki no longer waited nearby while Raidou slept, for he didn’t trust himself enough.
Then, there was a particularly gruesome fight that forced the decision. It finished when Naoki slammed his fists into the demon beneath him, cracking the concrete easily. The demon splatted instantly, and its scream cut off just as it exploded into dust. He kept slamming into the ground even after the demon had dissipated. The ground shook violently from his bare hands, smashing the concrete easily with barely a second thought.
Raidou tried to call to him, only for Naoki to lunge and swing at him.
Raidou jumped back in time, grabbing the hilt of his sword.
Naoki’s pupils slitted, and the tattoos pulsed angry crimson before fading into their usual blue-green. Naoki stumbled and nearly fell over, waking from the rage filled haze. His tattoos flashed white when they saw Raidou waiting, debating on drawing his sword, wondering if his next opponent would be someone he used to tentatively call an ally.
Then Naoki panicked, and his lungs burned like they always did after being consumed by demonic anger. He hastily took in rapid shallow breaths, gasping and gulping air as if he forgot to breathe for minutes and finally remembered that he needed to. Raidou cautiously approached, hand still resting on the katana’s hilt.
“…Maybe we should find somewhere to rest,” Raidou said quietly, his gaze not quite meeting the demi-fiend’s. Raidou’s face turned slightly pink, “Like you suggested.”
Naoki nodded, still doubled over catching his breath.
Although it was still daytime, the full moon could be seen faintly in the night sky.
So they searched for what Naoki called an ‘apartment building’. They found what they were looking for, and Raidou set to work picking the lock.
Naoki joked in his head that, “It’s a good thing that ‘ye olde lock picks’ still worked on modern day locks.”
He snorted to himself. Gouto’s glowing eyes flicked to him, making sure he stayed where he was while Raidou was occupied.
“Do you work part-time as a burglar?” Naoki said incredulously. “Why do you know how to pick a lock?”
Raidou just rolled his eyes. “I had to learn how to for a case, and I’ve had many opportunities to practice,” he sighed.
Naoki thought. “What case??? What do you mean MANY opportunities???”
The lock clicked. Raidou nodded, satisfied at his work, then stood. He opened the door, said “After you,” and smoothly gestured for Naoki to enter.
The apartment they walked into was small and mostly empty, furnished with only a mattress with unmade sheets and moving boxes stacked high against the wall. There was a to-do list taped to them, with organized handwriting specifying where each item was to go, and checkboxes for tasks that would never be finished.
“This should work,” Raidou approved.
Naoki almost asked him to pick another lock so they could go somewhere more comfortable, but Raidou already started moving boxes away from the bed, remaking the sheets, and scooting the mattress away from the wall.
Raidou reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a piece of chalk. He bent down and began drawing sigils on the floor with it, then traced even concentric circles around them with straight lines connecting the various sigils, and a larger circle around the entire mattress. Around the outermost circle’s circumference and around the concentric circles, he neatly wrote with trained penmanship in languages Naoki barely recognized, let alone understood.
“What’s all this for?” He nervously joked, feeling the hair on his neck starting to stand from the high the moon always brought.
Without looking up, Raidou evenly responded “Keeping you in,” The sounds of chalk tapping and scrawling against the floor continued to sound.
“Oh.”
“Right,” Naoki thought bitterly, now feeling very self conscious. “That’s why we’re here in the first place.”
He sighed and glanced out the window. The sun was beginning to set. He shivered, feeling his muscles tense and relax without his consent.
The sounds of chalk scraping the floor filled Naoki’s ears, and for a brief moment he remembered being bored in a classroom, waiting for the school day to be over.
A deep navy rippled through the geometric tattoos, and Gouto noticed. He misinterpreted the stimulus, and his expression darkened.
“That should do it.” Raidou stood, put away the chalk, then dusted off his hands. “Can you go inside? Don’t step on the chalk or disturb it.”
Naoki jokingly brought his foot close to the chalk, with an expression that said ‘ooh I’m gonna do it! I’m gonna do it!’, trying to fake Raidou out, to get some reaction and ease his own nerves a little.
“Please.” Raidou growled, clearly annoyed.
Naoki brought his foot back timidly, then carefully stepped across the threshold. Something immediately felt off once he passed into the space; the air felt stale and the space outside the circle seemed to have a monotone filter over it. He turned around, and walked close to the edge.
His new senses screamed that trying to leave the circle was dangerous, warning him of a danger he could not see or comprehend. The barrier above the chalk circle looked almost charged, wavy, like heat rising off pavement on a hot summer’s day.
“What’ll happen if I try to leave?” He asked quietly, eying the words written on the floor. The text didn’t make sense but their hostility towards him, his kind, was clear.
Raidou knew the answer, but avoided saying it. “I recommend staying inside until morning.”
“You’ll let me out then…right?” Naoki pleaded, starting to panic now that the space he could move around in was drastically reduced. His pupils constricted against his will, and his claws lengthened as the sun’s last glow faded from the room and night began to fall.
“If all goes well, yes,” Raidou answered distantly.
They stood, watching each other on opposite sides of the boundary, waiting for the other to make a move.
Raidou went first.
“Just give me a moment.” He undid the clasp on his cape, then carefully folded and set it on the floor.
Naoki sat on the mattress, and watched him almost hungrily. Then came the corseted kuda holders, his katana, and finally his jacket.
Naoki eyed the pistol that stayed in the holster at Raidou’s waist. He couldn’t bring himself to say he’d feel unsafe, since Raidou was risking more than he needed to for Naoki’s safety. Naoki realized Raidou probably could have just left him in the circle overnight. And yet, he still…
Everything that had been removed was neatly arranged on the floor, and close to the edge of the circle. Raidou removed his jacket, then set it on the cape and Gouto padded over to it. He pawed at the clothes to make a small spot for himself and lay down in it just as Raidou set his hat next to him.
Gouto looked up at Raidou with a look that said, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Raidou just pet him and went back to the task at hand.
Raidou reached up to his sleeves.
Naoki flashed bright pastel pink, the light drew Raidou’s gaze. He eyed Naoki suspiciously, then his eyes widened in understanding and he hastily looked away.
“I…uh…it’s hot in here. I—uh-I-I just was going to roll up my sleeves.” He stuttered.
“Oh-uh-huh-mhm-yep,” Naoki hastily agreed, still flashing bright pink.
The sleeves were rolled up to Raidou’s elbows. Now that that’s done… He looked up to the demi-fiend, who was starting to get fidgety.
Raidou cautiously walked to the edge of the circle, Naoki’s pupils were thin slits and his nails had already pierced the mattress though his hands barely touched it. His lamp-like eyes glowed in the dark, and the tattoos pulsed red.
Raidou worried that they had waited too long. Nonetheless, he took a breath, and stepped inside the chalk circle.
Naoki began shaking, and hastily looked away. Trying to focus, contain himself, fight against the animalistic desire to hurt, to maim, to rip his anchor to humanity apart. To sate this new hunger that disgusted him.
Raidou took a step closer.
Naoki’s body snapped towards him subconsciously. Then the slitted pupils widened in terror and he buried his head in his hands, almost hissing.
Gouto stood up, “Raidou…” He cautioned.
Raidou kept walking forward, with each step the demi-fiend twitched, fighting the instinct as best he could, the tension was building, the string being pulled taught…closer…closer…the string frayed.
Raidou put his arms around him. The string relaxed instantly, he could think clearly again. Every muscle he knew of and others that he didn’t know existed relaxed, and Naoki slowly eased into the embrace. The red glow that filled the room slowly faded into a purple, then returned to the usual blue-green.
“Better?” Raidou asked cautiously.
Naoki nodded, sighing.
“Yes.” He whispered, barely audible.
Naoki closed his eyes and listened to the sounds that he remembered relaxing him last time. Raidou breathing, in and out, reminding him that there was life within him. The sound of his heart beat, blood coursing through his veins and pumping through his arteries, his warm body against his too cold skin….and…
The knowledge that he could still be held. That he was still worthy of befriending another, as equals. Even in a state that was far from what could be considered human, someone still respected his wants.
Naoki had thought at that time that this was what Raidou was trying to communicate. Based on Gouto’s expression then… it definitely wasn't.
It was… maybe true now but Naoki wasn’t sure.
Grief and joy flowed through him, and the tattoos glowed a tye-dye of pale yellow and deep blue.
The memory of what brought Naoki back to his senses flashed before his eyes, and it confirmed what he already knew deep in his heart. Raidou was not trying to communicate anything then. He was fighting for his life, there was no hidden meaning behind the gesture. He tried to shake the realization and the accompanying guilt away… replace it with something else. It was too painful to think about. The tattoos flashed indigo.
Raidou, though concerned by the rapid color changes, was somewhat reassured that the angry crimson red had not appeared again.
Naoki had completely relaxed, but he could tell that Raidou was nowhere close to relaxed. His arms felt strained, seemingly deciding if and when they needed to reach for the pistol or push the fiend away.
Naoki felt worse the longer he was in the embrace. The anger crept into his mind, but it was directed at himself. He wanted to reconcile, apologize, and communicate something close to what he was feeling.
But the only words he could come up with were: “Can I… hug you back?”
A pathetic and meager attempt at an apology.
Raidou hesitantly answered, “…I suppose?”
So he did. He brought his clawed hands up, and carefully wrapped his arms around him.
They sat like that for some time. Somewhere in the silence between forgiveness and guilt.
Raidou spoke up after a while.
“Can…we lay down? I know you don’t need to sleep but I'm getting tired, and we will probably be here all night.”
The tattoos pulsed pink again.
“Uh…sure.”
Naoki kept inhaling deeply, his claws kept catching on the dress shirt as he tried to bury himself deeper into the embrace.
“I can’t smell that good.” Raidou grumbled.
It had been several days since he had taken a bath, and unfortunately, his uniform would always be better equipped for winter. The desert heat outside scorched his skin, and his black cape absorbed the remainder, making him sweaty at all hours of the day. Sure, the summer uniform was made of thinner and lighter material, but it never felt thin enough. The demi-fiend’s skin was cold as always, and he couldn’t deny that it was a nice reprieve after sweating profusely for months.
Naoki sniffed again. His tattoos glowed pastel pink. Raidou squinted. That color had never appeared before today, and it kept fluttering through the demi-fiend’s tattoos. He mentally added it to the list of colors he’d seen the demi-fiend show.
Raidou found that he was curious about this change. He wanted to figure out why that color kept flashing. He had an idea and wanted to test it.
He thought about Naoki’s insistence on intimacy, why he pressed himself so close.
“Do I smell good?” He teased.
“No…” lied Naoki.
Raidou pushed him away slightly to look into his eyes, slightly irritated.
“…Yes,” Naoki sheepishly admitted. His pupils were so wide in the dark, Raidou could barely see the thin glowing circle of yellow around them. Raidou figured it was from the dark room.
“…You…. do… smell nice,” Naoki mumbled, clearly embarrassed. The tattoos on his face turned a rosy pink, almost red.
“Do I now?” Raidou said incredulously. He figured the demon was lying to get closer, drawn in by some foreign instinct.
“Really! Really you do!” Naoki assured.
“What do I smell like then?” Raidou asked, not expecting a serious answer.
Naoki moved back into the crook of his neck and breathed deeply. Raidou blushed a little at the closeness of the interaction. He… had never been so close… so intimate with someone before. It… It…
It was nice.
Gouto rolled his eyes from his cushion, baked deep into a loaf. “Teenagers,” he grumbled.
“It’s faint but… You smell… like coffee and tea? Incense? I dunno what the names are, but I’ve definitely smelled them before……And…a little lavender?”
Most of the items he listed made sense, and were not items the demon could’ve lied about smelling; they were from a time he hadn’t been there for. Raidou made tea and coffee pretty much daily at the agency, either at the request of Tae or Narumi after he scolded her for using the agency as a cafe. Tea leaves were sometimes involved in rituals, and incense made sense since he carried a little bit of a few different types. But…the lavender was unexpected. Why lavender?
"Ah right."
It felt like a lifetime ago, but Narumi had given Raidou some lavender oil just before he left for this case. He said it was a gift from a client who was a foreigner. Raidou knew their monthly expenses like the back of his hand, and even though Narumi had significantly reduced how much he spent on alcohol after that one night he came back burned, he knew that the extra money had to be going somewhere. Narumi had told him to apply some to his neck and he did, though he was not sure what its purpose was.
Gouto had rolled his eyes then too.
He was amazed that all those scents still lingered, months after he’d been sent to this world.
Naoki felt Raidou finally relax in his arms. Almost excited, he leaned as close as he could and peered over Raidou’s shoulders and onto his back.
He wished he hadn’t.
Guilt soured his giddiness, for the back of his shirt was sprinkled with rips that were hastily sewn, outlined by old dried blood stains that were smeared from attempts to clean them out. Naoki remembered the scene from the last full moon that prompted this, and he hated how he buried deeper into the embrace. He didn’t deserve it. Not after what he did.
He remembered waking up from the red haze that coated his vision and overrode his rational mind, to Gouto viciously spitting, biting, and clawing at his legs. Any damage was healed before the cat had time to strike again, yet he still cried and begged desperately for Naoki to stop. He heard breathing coming in gasps, shuddering from pain. He felt Raidou sagging in his arms, the blood from his back oozing onto his hands. He remembered dropping Raidou out of shock, and panic overtaking him when Raidou landed on his shoulder and shrieked. He remembered apologizing profusely, his words jumbling into each other while he stared at his bloody red hands. His voice kept breaking up from gasps for air, and it cracked into more and more pieces the longer he looked between his blood soaked fingers, and they shook as Gouto stepped between him and Raidou, hissing between his fangs.
Naoki shuddered at the memory, his tattoos ebbed indigo.
Raidou felt him shake and wondered if he was crying. He wasn’t sure what from… but… the demi-fiend had been crying a lot recently, and the colors associated with it kept ebbing in time with his shuddering breaths. He closed his eyes to think.
Raidou feared him. He pitied him. He empathized with him. He understood him better than anyone he had ever known, yet at the same time he didn’t know him at all. But one thing he did know was that he was an unwilling participant in this fight. Though Raidou’s line of duty brought with it danger and loss, he had chosen this life willingly. He understood what consequences he would have to face and that the nature of his work would always have the inherent risk of tragedy. Plus, he had a great deal of time to prepare physically and mentally. Naoki… He was too young, too inexperienced to have so much thrust upon his shoulders. Even though they were about the same age, he already was weighed down with a responsibility he never asked for. He didn’t have years of training to prepare to fight monsters, but Raidou doubted any amount of training could adequately prepare someone for a fate like this.
Jouhei’s mind drifted back to the days he spent with Narumi, Kicchou, and Gouto in the Capital. They had all become dear friends since he left the village. People he would do everything in his power to protect. He'd of course protect the Capital too, it was his job but also his purpose first and foremost. However… the people he had met, become friends with, celebrated and cried with… If they no longer walked its streets he… It would hurt too much to patrol the empty streets.
The demi-fiend used to have people he cared about, and he likely knew them for longer than Jouhei knew his friends. He cared enough to cry for them as a corrupted version of himself, enough to fight against his nature. Caring was a very human trait, and Jouhei for the first time acknowledged that a human still stood—well, lay—before him. Even after he became a demi-fiend, a demon who should be capable only of emotional mimicry, Naoki still felt his emotions just as clearly and vividly as when he was human.
Raidou hesitated, then tentatively rubbed his back. The indigo slowly morphed back to the light blue as Naoki was comforted. The light didn’t stay as light blue though. It kept flickering a guilty green.
“What do I smell like?” Naoki asked softly, trying to focus on something else.
Initially, Raidou didn’t want to respond truthfully. Unfortunately, the demi-fiend didn’t smell nearly as… palatable. Sulfur burned Raidou’s nostrils, and a burnt smell choked the air around him.
But there was another smell… deep beneath those. Raidou thought he had smelled it before, but he wasn’t sure. The same material, maybe it had been repurposed in the time between their respective centuries. Or it was a scent he didn’t know demons could have. Maybe the latter. It wasn’t a very popular topic during his studies, nor was it a particularly useful one. But…he had never smelled this on other demons.
Perhaps from somewhere else then…
“There is something, but I can’t tell what it is.” He brought his face closer. The sulfur smell almost overpowered it, his eyes watered a little and his nose stung trying to discern it. Tea cups? Pots and pans? No, it was something else… A material… A metal…
“…Copper?” He guessed.
Naoki snorted, “What am I? A coin?”
He giggled a bit, then he laughed at his own joke. Raidou found himself smiling a bit. The tattoos flashed sunny yellow in time with Naoki’s giggles.
Gouto slept on the floor and the sun began to peek through the window.
Dawn had finally arrived.