🏛️𝐔𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐨𝐝 𝐑𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭🏛️||𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐀𝐔

🏛️I. "We Get Kidnapped By A Bat-Lady"

*^🗡️*+.🏛️🏹.+*🗡️*^

Amane kept his head down as he walked through the schoolyard, the bruise on his left arm throbbing with each step. His backpack felt heavier today, though it had nothing to do with the books inside. His stomach churned as he replayed the scene from earlier; his upperclassmen, laughing as they shoved him against a locker, their fists raining down on his body like a barrage assault, playing a sick game that only they enjoyed.

He clenched his eyes, feeling his throat burn as he held back tears. Even the bruises littering his body didn't hurt as much as the loneliness he felt—feelings of isolation that tortured him ever since he started middle school. Loneliness was one thing, but to be despised to the point of harassment was a fate that could cause even the strongest of people to break.

"Come on, Master," a dark, serpantine voice echoed throughout his mind.

Amane's eyes widened. The hairs on the back of his neck stood upright, and a feeling of dread flowed through him, spreading through his body like snake venom. As if his day couldn't get any worse.

A dull ache nagged inside his skull, a familiar sensation, but that wasn't what really bothered him. It was the shadows. They were moving again.

Across the classroom, where the corners of the light couldn't reach—there they stood. Dark, wispy, humanoid silhouettes, plastered across the walls like wicked shadow puppets. Their indistinct forms shifted constantly, writhing almost, and never fully taking shape. No light visible on the creature's bodies, except for the blank white hollows of their eye sockets. Truly eerie.

He knew them well—too well. He called them 'kages'. His constant companions, his tormenters, and if he dared to admit it, his only friends.

They whispered softly, their voices hushed and almost incoherent, like the moaning of the damned. He squeezed his ears shut, trying desperately to block them out. But it was no use. They always appeared when things got bad—when the loneliness gnawed, when the sadness felt like it would swallow him whole, when the memories of his upperclassman's cruel laughter echoed throughout his head so loudly he couldn't think of anything else.

"You should've fought back," another voice hissed from his left, its shadow stretching over him. "Punish them, Amane. Those filthy mortals have no right to lay a hand on you. Make them suffer. Hurt them the way they hurt you."

Amane clenched his fists, shaking his head. The kages never gave good advice. They whispered terrible things. Things that scared him, things that made him wonder if he was really going crazy.

He glanced back at the classroom door, hoping for once that someone would barge in. Anyone. Snap him out of these terrible thoughts. Make the monsters go away.

The kages slithered closer, one of them hovering just inches above his face. Its form was vague, nothing more than a black amorphous figure, with hollow eyes that stared right through him.

"They're waiting for you to break, Amane. You can feel it, can't you? The anger. You're angry at the way that they treat you. It's only a matter of time until you snap. And then you'll make them pay. Make those mortals suffer. We are waiting..."

Amane swallowed hard, his body shuddering with discomfort. He didn't want to fight. He didn't want to make anyone suffer. He wasn't a psychopath. At least, that's what he told himself.