IMPORTANT WARNINGS
This fic is rated M for violence, gore, rape, torture, major character death and general "omfg!" Please proceed with caution.
Sakuragi is a bad guy. And I mean it. He is bad. If you have a problem with that, please do not read this story. Thank you!
Special Thanks to Anita, Kaede4ever, and Lynn for their support over the last three years!
Thank you also to Akiraismylover for sharing all my excitement and enthusiasm for this story (and also for holding my hand while I cried about it.)
ANs: This was one of the very first senru stories that I ever imagined (back when I was about 14 years old). I still have a lot of my original drafts written when I was a teenager. Some things have changed, of course, but the general premise is the same. I'm really glad to finally complete it. It has been living in my head for two decades already.
It is also the last fic I will write for this fandom. It satisfies me that one of my first fics is also my last. And also that it is 20 years (to the month) since I first joined ffnet back in May 2001.
As always, I appreciate each and every comment. My PMs are always open and I'm really happy to have shared such lovely memories with the people who love Slamdunk and senru. Please refer to my profile page for occasional updates. Until we meet again I wish everyone a final - tearful but cheerful! - farewell.
DEMON
Prologue
This story begins long ago, in a village which no longer stands. At the time, the houses were all rough-hewn from local cedar, and the paths no more than dirt tracks.
If we follow one of the muddy paths through the late-night darkness, through the central market square - now deserted - out past the smith and past a small shrine, to an alley running between two barns used to store rice and great cypress barrels of sake, we will encounter the moment this story began.
Here there is the sound of laughter, eerie in the stillness of the night.
Ghastly shadows flicker on the wall as a group of shadowy forms kick at a figure who writhes on the ground at their feet. A few are holding burning brands up high, by which we see, and by which the shadows dance.
We can't see the boy's face but we hear his fear, in his rasping breath and his pained groans. As for those around him, there is something odd about them that you cannot quite put your finger on. They appear large, heavy, and lumbering, and yet their movements are too fast for you to comfortably follow with your eyes. Watching them is making you feel slightly nauseous. There's a bad taste in your mouth. These things you notice, but you cannot explain.
The boy is different to them. For him you feel a rush of warmth - but that too is beyond your understanding.
We'll stop now because we realise with a chill that we weren't the only ones to make the journey through the deserted village this night. Just behind us looms a being dark and evil. Your feelings of nausea redouble. We think for a moment that he followed us, but of course that is impossible - we are merely remembering.
He is dressed head to foot in a long, black cloak so for now we see nothing of him except that he is tall.
The others sense his arrival. He raises his hands and they part like waves, giving him a path to the hapless boy.
"Ah," he says softly, and smiles. "Perfect."
The boy shudders involuntarily, and so do we.
Something unusual happens now. Before your eyes the tall man seems to distort and ripple as though he were merely a reflection in a pond that has now been disturbed. You blink and rub your eyes but the distortion will not cease.
At the same time you feel a fierce heat on your exposed cheeks and the backs of your hands. If you close your eyes, it will feel as though you are standing too close to a bonfire.
Open your eyes again now, for an incomparable sight awaits you.
The heat lingers on but the distortion has stopped, and the man - if you can possibly conceive of calling him such a thing - has revealed his true form.
Doubtless you have heard of demons before. Mankind has had names, images, and stories about them since times immemorial. I can't begin to guess the images that come to mind when I ask you to imagine what a demon looks like. All I can do is tell you what you are seeing this night.
The demon looks like a man in all things except his wings. His face, now released from the shadows that had shrouded it, is young and handsome. His hair is a shock of fiery red. He is tall - much taller than an average man - although the exact height is hard to guess. He stands upright and proud - a leader - and his long black cloak swirls around his feet. There seems little doubt that, had he wished to, he could hold your fascination like a moth. His charismatic face leaves you certain of his charm.
But those wings!
Huge, dark and hideous. Perhaps twenty meters or more. You can see bloated and bulbous looking veins meshed into the thin membrane. In places there is a purple and greenish hue which puts you in mind of pestilence and plague.
It is an odd sensation, I know, to be at once so enthralled and yet repulsed to the very base of your heartbeat.
You'll come to realise now that they are all demons. All of them standing around the boy on the ground. None of them show wings like the tall man does, but you are no longer fooled by your sense of sight. The essence in you that makes you mortal knew long before your reason did that these creatures are abhorrent. But don't be disheartened. This is your first encounter, and you have already learnt this valuable lesson.
The boy on the ground is struggling now, trying to get up. His cheeks are streaked with tears and dirt. He seems little more than a child, barely scratching adulthood with his fingertips, his face smooth, boyish, and naive.
He had been afraid to die. Now he fears surviving may be worse.
The tall demon approaches him and stops just short, black boots inches from the boy's face. One hand idly fingers something that hangs from a chain around the demon's neck. Keys, you notice. Five silver keys.
He squats down now as if to examine the boy's face more closely. He smiles as if he is happy with what he sees, and you feel the coldness of his smile in your stomach.
"Take him back," the demon instructs, "and tie him to the ring."
He rises up to his full height again - tall, elegant, and horrifying.
"Please..." the boy speaks, finally. You can hear the terror in his voice. "What are you-"
The demon silences him with a kick to the face with one of his heavy black boots. All pretence of pleasantness has vanished from his face.
The demons begin to drag the boy away. He struggles feebly, but it is clear he is exhausted. He has been hunted, you realise, perhaps for miles.
We won't follow them, though. Not now. It wouldn't be right to witness this.
But, you ask me now, how could this night a thousand years in the past, possibly be the beginning of my story? You and I - we weren't even born. What could these ancient flickers of distant history have to do with us?
So I'll tell you: this was when the three apprentices first joined the fight. Joined in the war that has ravaged across the worlds since time unknown, encompassing heaven, hell, and the mortal men who stand in-between like pebbles thrown about between wave and shore.