The Demons of Shadow Moon

Part 114 - Bite

Yurio and Luna were walking back home, hands linked.

"So you go back to Kameko every night?" Luna summarised.

"Every night I can, yeah. It's cold up in the mountains, but... I need to make sure the ice doesn't melt," Yurio confirmed.

"And you've kept it from Leo all this time? Was Yurika the only one who knew about it?" Luna asked.

"Mm... She believed, with all her heart, that Dad would come back and revive him... so she didn't let us bury him. Said he had to be preserved... no matter what," Yurio explained.

So all that time...

"Erm... have-... you seen... this man?" Luna recalled Yurika asking about her husband...

She was looking for him... it wasn't just a delusion. Not completely.

"Is that why you've been going back there every night? Because it's what Yurika wanted?" Luna asked gently.

"... I don't know. I... honestly don't believe Hachirou's ever coming back. I know Kamy's gone..." Yurio admitted, referring to Kameko as Kamy.

His fists began to tremble.

"... but... I just can't stop... I can't bring myself to let go... it would prove that I had given up, wouldn't it...?! Th-that Kameko really is gone forever... I want...! I want to believe just a little bit...! Just... for a while longer..." Yurio shook.

Luna diverted her gaze, unable to think of comforting words.

Her grip on his hand tightened.

Hachirou Yuki... is Yurio's dad. Hachirou Yuki... the man who studied time travel for years, only to become blinded by his research...

"I believe that the magic nowadays could allow that of a new generation to travel through time, yes. I study it, after all,"  Luna recalled Hachirou from the other dimension explain.

"If you want to get back to your own time, then you could use a time stone,"

"A powerful stone that's supposed to lie on this island, but I've yet to come across it..."

"It's something only a desperate man would seek... (sigh) months later and still no luck finding it..."

"I've become so lost... seven years... I never intended to be here for so long... seven years... seven years, I wasted... seven years, I stole from my family...!! My kids!!"

"He forgot what he was really fighting for. What it all meant..." Echo had told her.

"A lot of us wanna change the past... but sometimes... it's best to accept things as they are and push through a new tomorrow," She recalled Aki's words...

But... that means there's still hope!

...

Right?

"Assignment Hachirou Yuki," she remembered the Angel Taro they had met...

"After losing his son - at the fault of a corrupt human..."

"Hachirou Yuki became set on bringing his son - Kamako - back using time magic," he had explained.

"But after studying in isolation for a few months, his instability was drawn attention to by the purification division. We examined different timelines to find his absence causes his second son to become an unstable mess, obsessed with getting strong, taking on power he can't handle, leading to more deaths than the reapers would care to take on,"