Sureiyazu

Episode 47: Kinrenka's Flowers

The day after the Sobi-sha left, the castle seemed very empty. 

It was almost as if she could feel it in the boards under her feet as she stood from her bed that they had left. Like there was something missing. It was funny how she had grown used to them, the team that had tried to burn down the castle upon their arrival.

She walked across the room to where there was a small mirror on the wall above a table, so she could look at how awful her hair looked and grunt at herself in the mirror when she thought of trying to fix it - the same thing she did every day.

But on the table there was a piece of paper, folded a few times, with Akuma written on it. 

She opened it.

Akuma,

I hope you find this after we've already left. I'm sorry if this is selfish of me, but you, at least, deserve to know what happened to me, because you also have a Spirit Eye and maybe you will empathize with me more than others, but I know you will look at me - and maybe all of us - differently once you know, and I am still ashamed of the things I've done.

My brother Ryou (he hasn't blown up the castle yet, has he?) and I were very close. Having my eyes, I always questioned fate and why I had to be the one with the curse, and why things happen, and why and why and why. Ryou always was there to comfort me. Over the years, I ignored him because it always seemed like lies to me that everything would be okay, and everything would work out.

One day, I left. I wrote Ryou a note, but I think by then he was also ignoring me, so he didn't come to meet me in the forest like I told him to. The whole thing was short-lived. I returned home after two days. It made me bitter, though, that not even my brother would care enough about me to come find me. I stopped telling him about when the demons would haunt me in the night, and when the spirits would plead me for help.

When I was fifteen, I left for good. This time I didn't tell anyone. I packed anything I could need, because I knew now that no one would help me (or so I thought). I found Master Shi simply by word of mouth, and by some kind of feeling in my heart that this was where I was supposed to go. When I arrived, he told me that he would only let me in if I had a good reason, and he was very firm about it. He was holding his scythe and I remembered thinking that he was very menacing - and powerful.

Finally I told him that I wanted to learn demonslaying. It was the only way that he would let me inside, and the feeling of destiny was still telling me that that was where I needed to be. He was very skeptical, but I assured him that I would be a very good student. And whether it was that we both have the curse of the Death Eye or because he thought that I really would be a good student, he let me in.

For five years I trained under him, and I learned a lot. Specifically, I taught myself from some of the books about demonslaying techniques that involved magic, and I invented my own, which I, of course, named the Yuuto Technique. 

But as I got older, the demons also became more active. I wished I were more powerful, so I could overcome them. I told Master Shi about it, but he told me to wait and my power would grow. I did not want to wait. One day when I heard of a demon that had been giving a nearby town some significant trouble (which it thought was hilarious), I told Master Shi that I would handle it on my own. He let me.