Chapter 4 - Enmi - To kill by a Magical Curse
Enmi's world was devoured in scorching red light. He screamed in pain as he felt every cell in his body be burned away all at once. The last thing he saw before his eyes were reduced to ash was the anguished roar of the demon covered in swords.
A pillar of light shot up to the heavens, a singular stroke of crimson pierced through the night sky. The earth rumbled as the peak of Mount Enzo was reduced to rubble in a great and terrible light.
For Lower Moon Three Enmi to be defeated, every single organic system with a drop of his blood had to be destroyed at once. It was a feat countless generations of demon slayers had failed to achieve. And tonight, after nearly four hundred years of existence, Enmi had finally been slayed.
Enmi the oldest Lower Moon had been slayed by a rouge demon.
After a few seconds of divine fury, the destruction abated and the light vanished, returning the inky black cover of night.
The land formation that was once known as Mount Enzo had ceased to exist. In its place was a smoldering crater filled with crumbling ash and stone, a dead zone. Everything organic had been burned away in the blast all sentient life had been extinguished.
Or so it appeared to the common eye.
Among the ashen debris scattered about, a large clump of hardened soil collapsed. From the center of that bit of earth slithered out a miniscule strand of blood. Its size was such that it could hardly be seen with the naked eye. Its dimensions were comparable to that of an eyelash, a razor thin line of liquid, barely constituting a drop.
The thin strand of blood wriggled pathetically through the dirt like any common worm. Its fragile shape threatening to break at any moment. But four hundred years of obsession kept its shape together as it slithered through the earth, searching for any remnant of life it could pass on its consciousness to.
Faint, near undetectable, but nevertheless, still there. Enmi's consciousness was carried on through the hair-like strand of blood.
Impossible. Utterly impossible. A newborn demon with so much power. A rogue demon at that, one so fervently intending to kill Lord Muzan. Why does such a demon exist? How can such a demon exist? Why does Lord Muzan permit its existence!
Enmi's consciousness screamed all of its indignities through the telepathic network all demons shared. But it was pointless. His mind was already too faint. No connection could be established on his end anymore and certainly no aid would come from anyone on the other end.
After four hundred years of watching countless demons come and go, finally, it was Enmi's turn to be the one abandoned. There was no longer any hope of salvation for him. His lord and master had left him to die and so too the rest of his kind would follow suit.
Still, all rationale had evaporated from Enmi's mind along with his body. All that was left were the raw, unfiltered passions that plagued his quickly fading consciousness.
Lord Muzan! Save me! Please! You need me! You need my research! I was so close! There was something off about that girl's bloodline! I'm sure of it. I can prove it. Give me just a few more years, nay, a few more days, and I can bear fruit to your most ardent of desires!
But again, it was fruitless. At this point, Enmi's connection to Muzan had all faded away. It was as if though that rogue demon's last attack had burned away every trace of influence Muzan once had over Enmi. And with his connection to Muzan severed, Enmi's cries, his desperate bargains would all go unheard in vain.
I can't let it end like this. I refuse. I have yet to accomplish anything. My talents were just beginning to bear fruit. I could've almost done it. My experiments with all those corpses will not be for naught. I was so close. So close to finally creating a demon from the dead. If I could've done that, then, then….!
Enmi's reason had been stripped away. His obsession which had driven his research through hundreds of years was revealed in a moment of clarity.
The small strand that carried Enmi's consciousness collapsed into itself, sinking into a small crack in the dirt. It fell into darkness, disappearing in a mere blink of an eye.
I could've finally repaid you… Old Man.
Enmi's last whisper vanished into oblivion. Neither heaven nor hell granted him relief. Only darkness.
Once, he'd been human. Before he was Enmi, before he was a demon, he was like every other miserable human born on this planet, powerless and frail, weak and alone. Except, fate had granted him a crueler life than most.
Before Enmi became Lower Moon Three, he was just an unwanted orphan abandoned in the wild, a nameless child abandoned by the world.
He no longer remembered how it came to be. Even now as a transient soul about to disappear, he no longer held any memories of his past before waking up in the wilderness. When he thought of a mother or a father, no intelligible face would appear in his mind.
Except one face. One face which belonged to a person that was unmistakably not related to him by blood.
Back then, he was just a savage child in the wild. In the untamed wilderness where no humans dared enter, he was a child that was almost certainly meant to die. But nevertheless, the heavens had bestowed upon him who was born into so much misfortune a gift. A talent unlike any other.
His origin was nature. For he was a child born of nature and one with nature. He could instinctively tell the nature of plants and animals. From what was safe to eat, what was poisonous, what could be used to ward off predators and what could be used to kill prey.
By the grace of his innate gift, he survived for who knows how long on his own. Each and every day was a struggle for survival but survive he did. Through the skin of his teeth and his cunning wit, he persevered against the odds.
But as much as he struggled, he was only a lone child in the end. Soon enough, he reached his limit. But as luck would have it, he chanced upon a fateful meeting in his darkest hour.
Time had passed him by like a rapid river when he was a savage in the wild. But he must've been twelve or so odd years by the time he finally met another human on that most fateful of nights.
He was running from a pack of wolves that night. He had underestimated the ferocity of starving wolves and paid the price. Even when he drugged and incapacitated one, another would bite its fellow beast and fuel the creature's rage, forcibly powering through whatever concoction the boy could muster.
He was outnumbered and outmatched on all fronts. The wolves had cornered him against the side of a cliff. But just as the boy was about to make his final stand, a sharp noise he'd never heard before whistled through the cold night air.
An arrow pierced the alpha wolf's eye, cutting right into the creature's brain. Both the boy and the wolves were stunned for a moment, before another arrow shot another wolf dead.
What followed after was a sight that the boy could hardly believe. The pack of hungry wolves were decimated by the hands of lone hunter perched atop one of the trees. His aging form nimbly danced in the branches as he rained down death.
Once he was certain of his safety, all tension left the nameless boy's body and he collapsed.
What followed after that meeting was much clearer in Enmi's memories.
The man was a hunter who ventured into the frontiers in search of food. There had been a shortage of prey after a forest had been burned down in a conflict between neighboring states. The hunter had just chanced upon the boy's desperate situation that night and helped himself to some wolf meat.
The hunter was an old man well into his fifties. It was a rare age to reach in that tumultuous time of war. But in spite of his age, he still ended up taking the boy into his home and raising him under his wing.
The hunter would move on to eventually give the boy a name. A name for the child of the wilds.
"Your name will be Kusa," the hunter had proudly dubbed. His eyes thinned into merry slits as he explained. "Like the common grass you can find anywhere. Resilient no matter what the circumstance. While others might easily trample on you, you persevere and grow as you please. Through whatever terrain, whatever obstacle you face, may you remain obstinate and unerring in your stubborn way of life."
Kusa hadn't been pleased with the idea of being compared to grass or weeds, but the old man just laughed off his gripes with a stupid grin.
"It's perfect for a stubborn boy like you!" he'd said with a wan smile on his face.
Kusa would go on to live with the hunter in his hut in the outskirts of a village. For whatever reason, the hunter wasn't welcome with the rest of the humans in the village. Kusa would often pass his days in seclusion along with the hunter, hiding away from their scornful gazes of derision.
The hunter would often bring him on hunting trips for food. But on most days, he would often just drill lessons of reading and writing into him. He was obsessed with teaching Kusa the value of the written word.
"You were blessed with such gifts by the gods. It'd be a shame if you couldn't share your talents with the rest of society," he often said.
Kusa didn't understand at the time. But the hunter was filled with a stubborn sense of duty to the community that rejected him. He couldn't understand why it was so important to be of use to someone who despised them.
"Then if I use my talents for others, will the villagers stop calling you names like the worthless ronin or cowardly samurai?" Kusa had asked, aggrieved.
The hunter had said something to the effect of it being a possibility and that had been enough for Kusa.
From there, Kusa swore to devote himself to bettering himself. To overcome his brash nature and become a respectable member of society that would make the hunter proud.
From there, it all went downhill.
After a few years of living with the hunter, Kusa caught the attention of a doctor and became a medical apprentice. But overtime, his talents for herbs and spices was noticed and he was recommended and transferred to a doctor directly serving under the local daimyo.
He moved out of the hunter's humble house in the outskirts and moved into the daimyo's mansion. He lived in the outer chambers with the rest of the medical apprentices. There he lived and studied under the most brilliant medical minds of the area.
But there, he also had to endured countless incidents of bullying and abuse. His peers were jealous of his talents and looked down on his humble background as the child of a vagrant hunter.
But Kusa endured it all. Like the namesake the hunter bestowed upon him, Kusa persevered through it all while keeping his composure. All of it was to make the hunter proud. He wanted to become a respected doctor that would bring honor to the man who raised him.
Years passed and Kusa completed his training. He was officially employed to be the personal doctor of the next daimyo, the newly named head of the family, after the previous daimyo had been killed in battle with the neighboring territory.
Kusa was proud of his achievement when he sent a message to the hunter. But then the new lord of his land gave Kusa a command, one he could not obey. Use his skills as a doctor to devise an illness that would wreak havoc on the opposing territory's people.
Kusa of course rejected his new lord's order. He knew that if he did create a disease like that it would spread far beyond their enemy's territory. But the young lord was convinced of his genius tactic and would not take no for an answer.
Eventually, Kusa's private research into a cure for common communicable diseases was stolen by one of his peers and used to create a new contagious disease. It was presented to the young lord who eagerly released it in enemy territory, spreading the new plight through the enemy troops.
The young lord was ecstatic when his tactic worked. The enemy lord's army quickly fell apart from the inside and his land was occupied.
But the results were as Kusa had feared.
"You quack doctor dared to fool my esteemed brilliance! You promised me a disease that would destroy my enemies and would be contained outside our borders. But look what you've brought me! A plague like no other!"
The young lord whipped up in a frenzy and gathered all the doctors in his service. He lashed at them like a petulant brat and punished them collectively.
"Ill have you all slit your stomachs, of course, but that's not enough. Demons like you who spawn such malevolent plagues must be uprooted altogether. The evil that spawned you must likewise also take responsibility!"
Kusa, who up to this point had maintained his manners for years in order to make the hunter proud, suddenly lost all semblance of reason. He cast away all pretenses of manners and etiquette the hunter had instilled in him and pounced at the young daimyo.
The attack caught the daimyo and his retainers by surprise. Never had they imagined that the humble doctor they had always looked down would fight like a wild beast. Kusa managed to gouge out the young lord's left eye with his bare hands before he was subdued by a platoon of samurai.
For the added crime of personally inuring the daimyo, Kusa was given a special punishment.
While the rest of the doctors and their families were executed quickly, Kusa was made to watch as his adopted father would be beheaded.
Bound and gagged in front of a crowd of onlookers, Kusa watched as the similarly bound hunter was made to sit before an executioner.
The hunter wore a resolute face until the end. His eyes stayed with Kusa's until his final moment. Kusa wouldn't blame the hunter if he looked at him with any scorn or regret, but that hadn't been the case. He merely gave Kusa the same stupid smile he wore when he gave Kusa his name all those years ago.
"Thank you–"
The executioner swung his sword and the crowd cheered. They celebrated the hunter's death with glee. They cursed him with insults for spawning the demon doctor that created the plague that terrorized the land.
Kusa screamed like a madman through his gag and restraints. Tears of blood dripped down his face as he burned into his memory the sight of monsters celebrating the hunter's death.
But Kusa's suffering was slated to last for only another day.
Still bound and gagged, he was locked up in a private cell, awaiting execution for the next day. His eyes stared dead at the center of his cell.
The hunter's calmly smiling face was presented to him on a silk sheet as blood seeped out of his severed neck.
Kusa's punishment was to be killed in a similar fashion after a night of being left alone with the hunter's head in a prison cell.
It was the daimyo's personal brand of torture.
It was also during this time that Kusa's life as a human ended.
"Pathetic. Humans who cannot comprehend even the most basic concepts of medicine are allowed to raise hell or heaven to anyone as they please. And you, the powerless puppet of those humans, are the most pathetic of all."
A voice from the corner of his cell spoke to Kusa. From the shadows, appeared a young man in a black kimono befitting of nobility. His face deathly pale, and his eyes blood red.
"But pathetic as you are, your skills may prove useful for my quest. Swear your life to me. And I will grant you a new life as a demon."
Demon? Kusa laughed through his gag. Very well. Just like how his lord called him, he would become a demon.
On that night, Kusa died with the hunter and Enmi the demon was born.
Enmi. To die of unnatural circumstances, an illness like a curse.
The boy who lived like a stubborn, proud weed died and became a curse that would plague the world.
As a demon doctor, Enmi would go on to experiment heavily with plants and animals. He would use his deep understanding of plants and medicine to create a synthetic Blue Spider Lily. He would synthesize drug after drug to mimic the rumored plant's effects. His research would often result in the birth of new and strange illnesses, often killing droves of people in the process.
He would then use those dead bodies in his other more personal research goal: to create a demon from a dead body.
Though over time, he'd forgotten the origin of his research and just became obsessed with creating a true demon from a corpse. He still kept the hunter's head on his person at all times, preserved and nourished with his blood, in a box he never opened.
Although he no longer remembered who the head belonged to, he still carried it with him as a specimen to use when his research finally succeeded. When he was absolutely sure his blood could bring the dead back to life, he was supposed to use the head in the box first.
Yes, that's all it was. Centuries of Enmi's research was all for the sake of reaching one goal.
I just wanted to meet you again and apologize, Old Man.
But alas, that future had also vanished.
The hunter's head had also been burned away with the rogue demon's attack.
Nothing of the hunter was left to restore. No demon to create from the dead. No reason for Enmi to continue to exist.
Dying like this… Without achieving anything. What a waste….
Pointless. It was all just pointless.
There was no point in remembering all these memories. Not when he was just about to fade away. Enmi had already lost everything.
His memories as a human only hammered it in how badly he had failed. As a doctor, as a human, as a son, he had failed.
But just as the last drop of Enmi's blood began to turn to ash, it landed on something warm.
A lone trace of life buried underneath a mound of death. The drop of blood seeped into the unmistakable feeling of flesh. It belonged to one of the only possible creatures that could have survived the rogue demon's attack.
It was the rogue demon itself.
Enmi's last drop of blood had fell into a hole and miraculously landed on the sword demon's unconscious body. Its last attack must have left the rogue demon entirely drained of energy. In this vulnerable state, the demon's body was practically an empty shell.
A fresh young body of a newborn demon, one that was utterly drained of energy after unleashing a powerful blood demon art. It was the perfect candidate for Enmi's next vessel.
If Enmi tried, he could supplant his consciousness onto the Sword Demon's body. There would be no struggle, no resistance.
On instinct, Enmi spread into the sword demon's mind. He infused his remaining consciousness into a few of the demon's cells, penetrating into the rogue demon's psyche.
But what greeted Enmi was a hell unlike he'd ever seen before.
The rogue demon's mind was like a nightmare. A hellscape trapped in perpetual darkness. A world where only blood and swords could be seen as far as the eye could see.
Enmi's faint mind eroded. But still, he persisted. His ego had survived for nearly four hundred years. Even if it was impossible to take complete control of the sword demon, it could at least leave an indelible mark of damage, maybe even a seed that would eventually take over in the future.
But just as Enmi was about to do etch his soul into the demon's mind, a familiar voice rang in his head.
"Enough of that. Even your stubbornness must have its limits."
Enmi recognized the voice immediately. In the depths of his mind, the spectral image of the hunter appeared in his mind. He looked just as he did in Enmi's memories, proud and stalwart even in his twilight years.
Part of Enmi was elated at the sight of his adopted father. But another part of him still refused and fought to control the sword demon's body.
"Stop that. You've done enough. You don't have to anything more, Kusa."
"Shut up!" Enmi reacted violently. "Don't call me that! I don't deserve that name. Not after all the trouble I brought you! I am Enmi. The Third Lower Moon. The Demon Doctor!"
Enmi turned his back on the hunter and continued to attack the Sword Demon's body.
But his efforts were cut off when he felt a pain strike his shoulder. He turned around, expecting to find the hunter's angry face. But still he was only met with the hunter's stupid smile.
"No matter what you call yourself, no matter how far you've fallen, you're still the same in my eyes. You're still the stubborn patch of grass I found in the woods that day," the hunter shook his head. "A son doesn't need to deserve the name his father gave him."
"No!" But still Enmi persisted. "I haven't done anything yet. I still haven't achieved anything of value. I still haven't done anything you'd be proud of. Just let me do this! Let me take over this child's body. I'll research that girl's blood and then I'll recreate the flower Lord Muzan seeks and then I'll–"
"You'll make me proud?"
Enmi paused. Even he realized the folly of his train of thought. The hunter's sarcastic tone made it all the more apparent.
Even if Enmi did succeed in recreating the Blue Spider Lily, doing so would only bring more death and suffering into this world. There was no way of making the hunter proud of that.
"It's all I know how to do. It's all I can do…" Enmi wavered.
Warmth wrapped around Enmi's quivering body. The hunter's arms enveloped Enmi, just like that fateful night in the forest all those years ago.
"Silly child. There was never any need for you to try so hard. I've always been proud of you. From the moment you accepted the name I gave, I've never once been disappointed with you," the hunter softly whispered.
Suddenly, Enmi's mental image of himself, his demon form, changed. He reverted back to the simple orphan abandoned in the wild. He turned around and hugged the hunter with all his might.
He cried himself silly into the hunter's clothes, burying himself in the nostalgic warmth, the comfort he sought, the family he spent centuries trying to bring back.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. For killing you. For killing them. For killing them all. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," Kusa apologized frantically.
Centuries of sin weighed down on him in an instant. The lives he took in his revenge. The lives he destroyed in his research. The lives he played with in his obsession. They could never be recovered.
"It's okay. We all make mistakes. This time, we'll go together. I'll stay with you, no matter where."
"Old Man…!" Kusa cried out.
The image of the two, the father and son not connected by blood, was devoured in a sea of flames. Their bodies vanished together in a blaze.
And so too, the drop of blood on the sword demon's body fizzled out of existence.
The unwaking demon entirely unaware of the danger that nearly overtook him.
Demon Slayer Corps Records:
Enmi (魘魅): said to have been the oldest and longest surviving demon to remain a Lower Moon. While his Blood Demon Art "Eternal Elixir of Blood" was not outrightly powerful. His tenacity and versatility made him a formidable enemy to face. He had the opportunity but never opted to challenge any of the Upper Moons or Lower Moons above him. However any challenge to his third seat as Lower Moon was quashed for nearly four hundred years.
Believed to have been originally a talented doctor from the Warring States Period, his research objectives as a demon doctor were to synthesize a drug replicating the effects of the Blue Spider Lily and to create a true autonomous living demon from a corpse. He routinely caused outbreaks of strange diseases across the land. Those killed in his plagues were killed off by authorities to prevent the spread of the disease and provided ample research material for his second objective.
The Demon Slayer Corps have no record of his death. But he is assumed to have been slain due to the stop of the mysterious plagues spreading across the land.
Kusa (草): a name literally meaning "grass" or "weed". Said to have been the name of a doctor who birthed a terrible plague that spread across the Azai and Asakura territories in the Warring States Period. Records show he and his immediate family were sentenced to death by the local daimyo of his region.
Author's Note:
As a college professor of mine once said to me after I passed a report one full year late, "Done is better than perfect."
This thing is nowhere near perfect, but it is done. It probably won't satisfy you Shirou-crazy readers. But I'm glad I managed to wrap a nice little bow on this OC of mine. He's dead now. Yay. We can finally get a nice POV from Shirou!
Hope you enjoyed reading at least.
If you're feeling generous and can afford the trouble, would you buy me a cup of coffee please? (ko-fi dot com slash dhaturas).
Thanks for reading!