Crimson Burdens (Part 1)
The mansion of Yakaziku was silent that night, the halls lit faintly by candlelight that flickered with every draft of wind. Outside, the spring thaw crept over the city, snow melting into streams along the stone paths. Yet inside the walls, the cold lingered—this time not from the weather, but from the weight between two children sitting far apart, unable to meet each other's eyes.
Rūpu had tried to cheer Hanae earlier, to coax her into one of her clumsy laughs. But her smile broke, and something darker slipped through. By the time they stood in the guest hall, voices were raised, words sharp like drawn blades.
"You think you understand suffering, Rūpu?" Hanae's voice broke as she shouted, fists trembling at her side. "You think your horns, the rocks, the beatings—make you some cursed child? At least strangers were your tormentors. At least you didn't have to face it every day from those who call themselves family!"
Rūpu froze, the air between them tightening. Hanae pressed on, unable to hold it back anymore.
"I was beaten not by outsiders but by the very people meant to protect me! My mother, my servants, even the guards who bow to her—they curse me because of a name, because of some ancestor's tale that says the wicked crimson Oni witch will return! They look at me and see her. They don't see Hanae. They don't see a child. Just a monster in waiting!"
Her voice broke into sobs, but she forced herself to keep going, pouring out the torment she had kept buried for so long.
"My father was the only one who loved me. The only one who saw me—not a curse, not a reincarnation, not a witch—but me. And do you know what happened to him? They executed him! Not for treason, not for crime—but for me! For protecting me, for speaking against them! They called him a traitor because of his love, and when they dragged him to the scaffold, he cursed me with his dying breath. Because he thought if he pretended to hate me, maybe I wouldn't bear the guilt. But it burned into me all the same. His words, their words, all of it! And now—now I am nothing but despair made flesh!"
She collapsed to her knees, clutching her heart, tears staining her sleeves.
Rūpu clenched his fists. For a moment he wanted to reach out, but then something in him cracked as well. His own voice rose, sharper than steel.
"You think despair belongs to you alone, Hanae?!" His words echoed in the hall, startling her enough to look up through her tears. "You think you've known the worst of this world? That your pain is the deepest? Don't fool yourself!"
He stepped forward, eyes blazing, his voice breaking under the weight of his own grief.
"I don't even remember my parents' faces! Do you understand what that means? The only father I had—the monk who took me in—he died in my arms, bloodied and broken by bandits! My real parents, great wariors together? Were murdered because they dared to love me. A human loved an Oni, and for that, they were hunted and slaughtered. And me? I was left alive, not as a blessing, but as a punishment!"
Hanae's lips trembled, but Rūpu didn't stop. The flood was too strong.
"I was beaten too—not just by fists or stones, but threatened with death over and over. Do you know what it's like to be tied to a carriage, dragged until you bleed, told you should've died with your parents?! To be reminded every day that your very birth was a mistake?!" His voice shook with rage and sorrow.
He slammed his palm against the wall, his breath ragged. "You talk about family turning against you. At least you had one to begin with! At least you knew a father's smile before it was taken away. I had nothing. I made my first friend only recently, and even then, I expected him to hate me because of what I am. Do you know what it means to spend your entire life without love, without a home, with no one to call your own?!"
Hanae's tears froze in her eyes. Rūpu's voice dropped lower, but it burned even hotter.
"We're all scarred, Hanae. Isshun too. But you act like your pain stands above ours, as if you're the only one allowed to break, the only one allowed to despair. You're not. You've been stubborn, hiding behind your tears, while we've all been trying to stand, to fight, to live—for each other! And you—you spit on that bond!"
Hanae's sobs turned silent. The weight of his words pressed on her ribs like chains. She tried to shout back, but no voice came.
Rūpu's breath steadied. His eyes softened, though sorrow still darkened them. "We're friends, Hanae. Maybe the only family any of us will ever have. But if you can't see that—if you'd rather drown in your curse than stand with us—then maybe we're not friends at all."
Silence swallowed the room.
Hanae's body shook, her lips trembling, but no words came. The two of them turned away, their footsteps heavy as they walked in opposite directions down the hall. Neither looked back. Neither spoke again.
For the first time since their paths had crossed, Rūpu and Hanae were no longer walking together.
And in that hollow silence, their bond shattered.
The Weight of Two Shadows (Part 2)
The night was heavy in the golden mansion of Yakaziku. The echoes of Hanae and Rūpu's fight still lingered in the walls like scars burned into stone. The household staff dared not speak of it, though whispers carried through the corridors—whispers of a princess and a bandit child tearing each other apart with words sharper than any sword.
Isshun sat in the garden courtyard, the moonlight reflecting off the koi pond at his feet. He had heard nearly everything. Not because he wanted to, but because their voices carried, their grief too large to be contained by closed doors.
He tilted his head back and stared at the stars. They glimmered faintly, but to him, they felt dimmer tonight. He whispered softly to himself:
"Two friends broken. And I—I'm still here, caught between them. What do I even do?"
His voice broke. No one was around to hear him, and yet his heart poured out like it had been waiting for years.
Isshun had always carried weight, though he rarely let it show. The cheerful exterior, the occasional teasing remarks, the way he could smile even when the world was cruel—those were his masks. But masks eventually slip.
He thought back to Hanae's trembling voice, to the way she screamed of curses, executions, and despair. He thought back to Rūpu's raw anger, the pain of a kid who had never known love or a home. Two broken pieces of glass, sharp and jagged. And somehow, he had been standing between them all this time, holding them together without realizing it.
But now... now that glass had shattered.
And it was him who was bleeding.
He closed his eyes and thought of his own past. His own scars.
He remembered stones pelting his body as a child. The laughter of cruel villagers. The way people spit at him and called him cursed blood. He remembered the endless days of hunger, the aching cold nights when his body trembled in alleys with nothing but scraps to hold him over. And he remembered the dreams—dreams of finding someone who would look at him not as trash, not as filth, but as a person worth standing beside.
That was why he clung to Hanae. Why he accepted Rūpu, even when the kid was sharp-tongued and reckless. Because, deep down, Isshun feared one truth more than anything:
That if they left him, if they broke apart, he would return to being that child again. Alone. Abandoned. Worthless.
His eyes watered. He clenched his fists, trembling with the weight of it. "I can't lose them. I can't. If they fall apart, then what was the point of me fighting this long? What was the point of surviving all that pain?!"
His voice shook, a raw scream swallowed by the night air.
Morning came. The mansion bustled with activity, nobles gossiping about Hanae's return, servants whispering of rumors of a thief child sneaking through halls. Isshun moved silently through it all, his face unreadable.
He found Hanae in the east wing, sitting alone by the window. Her eyes were distant, her body hunched like a child lost in a storm. She didn't look up when he entered.
Isshun sat beside her. Silence stretched between them.
"You hate him now, don't you?" Isshun finally asked.
Her lips quivered. "I don't... hate him. I just..." Her voice breaking. "... I don't know if I can face him again. He doesn't understand. He doesn't—"
Isshun cut her off softly. "He does. Maybe more than you want to admit."
Her eyes widened slightly, but he didn't give her a chance to argue.
"You both carry pain you think no one else can understand. And maybe you're right. No one can fully understand someone else's suffering. But does that mean you throw each other away? You think being alone will hurt less?"
Hanae bit her lip. Tears welled up, but she didn't speak.
Isshun placed a hand on her shoulder. His voice trembled. "If you walk away now, you'll only prove the world right—that we're all cursed, broken, better off alone. Don't let them win, Hanae. Don't let your scars chain you forever."
For a moment, she almost leaned into him. Almost. But then she pulled away, whispering, "I... need time."
Isshun's heart sank, but he nodded. "Then take it. But don't take forever."
Later that day, he found Rūpu training in the courtyard, swinging his blade furiously at straw dummies until they tore apart. His breaths came in ragged bursts, sweat soaking his clothes.
Isshun leaned against the fence, watching quietly. Finally, he spoke:
"You're trying to fight shadows, Rūpu. You'll never win like that."
The kid froze, his blade shaking in his grip. He turned, eyes sharp, but softened when he saw it was Isshun. "She doesn't get it. She'll never get it. Why should I even bother?"
Isshun walked over, standing a few feet away. "Because she's your friend."
Rūpu scoffed, wiping sweat from his brow. "Friends don't say things like that. Friends don't..." His voice broke, and he looked away.
Isshun's own voice broke. "Friends hurt each other sometimes. Especially when they're both bleeding inside. I've seen it before. I've lived it before. And it doesn't end well."
Rūpu lowered his blade. His hands trembled. "... Then what am I supposed to do? Pretend it didn't happen? Pretend she didn't spit on everything I've been through?"
"No," Isshun said firmly. "You don't pretend. You forgive. You fight for the bond, even if it's ugly. Because if you don't, then you'll end up alone again. And I know you, Rūpu—you don't want that."
Silence.
Rūpu dropped his sword. His shoulders sagged. For the first time, Isshun saw not the bandit child, not the angry fighter, but a broken kid who just wanted to be loved.
And in that moment, Isshun realized something deeper:
He was carrying them both. Their pain, their scars, their anger. He was the bridge holding them together. And if he broke, if he gave up, the entire fragile trio would shatter.
The weight was crushing. It made his stomach ache, his throat tighten. But he couldn't let go. He couldn't. Because if he did, then everything they had fought for so far—all the battles, all the nights, all the near deaths—it would all be meaningless.
"I'll hold you both," Isshun whispered under his breath, unseen by either Hanae or Rūpu. "Even if it breaks me, I'll hold you both. Because someone has to."
That night, Isshun lay awake, staring at the ceiling. He thought of Hanae's tears. He thought of Rūpu's anger. He thought of his own loneliness, clawing at his heart like a beast.
And in the dark silence of the mansion, he cried softly. Not because he was weak. But because he knew the truth—
One day, his strength might not be enough to keep them together.
And that thought terrified him more than any Oni, any curse, any villain waiting on the horizon.
The Masked Bandit's Dance (Part 3)
The mansion had not yet woken. Dawn lay just beyond the horizon, painting faint smears of gray light across the golden city of Yakaziku. But in the courtyard, under the swaying branches of a sakura tree stripped bare by winter, a kid moved like a shadow.
Giru Hazuma.
The smirking bandit.
The fox-masked thief.
The crooked-horned child of ruin.
He should have been gone already. The guards had lost count of how many times he slipped in and out of the city walls as if they were made of paper. Yet tonight, he lingered. Not for riches. Not for glory. Not even for the thrill of outsmarting nobles.
No—he lingered because he had seen something the night before.
Three kids, broken and scarred, fighting each other harder with words than they ever had with blades. The princess with eyes of fire and sorrow. The outcast bandit-child who roared about scars. And the quiet one—the anchor—who bled silently under the weight of them both.
It was familiar. Too familiar.
And it hurt.
The memory struck Giru like a knife. A face—fuzzy, half-faded in his mind, but smiling once. A friend. A brother in everything but blood. They had sworn to live free, to fight the world together. But the promise broke. And Giru, still a child, watched as that friend was taken, chained by the very same nobles that spat on the weak.
The sound of screaming still rang in his ears, even years later. Screaming... and then silence.
His crooked little Oni horn burned with phantom ache as he remembered.
"Damn it," Giru whispered into the empty courtyard, gripping his blade. "Why do I care? Why do their broken faces... remind me of him?"
He pulled his fox mask down over one eye. The smirk returned, wide and cruel, but inside, his heart twisted. He hated this ache. He hated feeling like a child again despite being one still but just older than back then.
And so he decided: he would force them to fight. Force them to stand together. Because if they didn't, they'd crumble the same way he once did. And he couldn't watch that again.
Even if it meant being the villain in their story.
By sunrise, chaos had already begun.
"INTRUDER!" the Oni guards screamed as Giru burst from the vaults of the mansion, jewels spilling from his bag like a trail of breadcrumbs. His laughter echoed against the golden walls.
"Hah! Too slow, too fat, too loud! The fox runs free again!" he jeered, flipping onto the roof with inhuman agility.
Servants shrieked. The nobles woke in fury. Hanae's mother screamed curses of shame.
And then, from their shared chamber, Isshun, Rūpu, and Hanae came running, their fragile trio forced into motion once more.
"It's him!" Hanae gasped. "The thief—again?!"
Rūpu's eyes narrowed, catching a glimpse of the mask, the horn, the smirk. But behind all that bravado, he saw it: eyes clouded by a pain he knew too well.
Isshun clenched his fists. His heart sank. "Why now? Why us?"
But they had no time to question. Giru leapt down, twin daggers flashing, his horn glinting like sharpened ruby in the sun.
"Wake up, children of misery!" he shouted, voice booming with mockery and yet quivering beneath. "If you want to matter—fight me! Show me you're not just scraps waiting to be trampled!"
The air cracked. The battle began.
Rūpu was the first to strike, blade meeting dagger blade in a shower of sparks. Giru laughed, twisting with inhuman speed, parrying every blow like he was toying with him. Yet Rūpu wasn't going all in. His heart resisted.
He's not fighting us to win, Rūpu thought, teeth gritting. He's... pushing us. Testing us. Forcing us together.
But even knowing that, he swung. Because if he didn't, Giru's efforts—whatever twisted reason lay behind them—would be wasted.
Isshun darted forward next, fists glowing faintly with his aura. He aimed for Giru's blind side, only for the bandit to flip and kick him square in the gut. Isshun hit the ground, coughing, but forced himself up.
"You think we're toys to break?!" Isshun spat, charging again, his voice breaking with both rage and desperation.
"No!" Giru roared back, his smirk faltering for just a second. "I think you're fragile glass pretending to be steel! So prove me wrong!"
Hanae stood frozen at first. Her body trembled. Her scars screamed. She remembered the curses, the beatings, the whispers of being a reincarnated witch. Why fight? Why keep standing?
But then she saw Isshun, battered yet rising again. She saw Rūpu, slashing even as his heart resisted.
And she realized: they were fighting not for themselves, but for her too.
With a cry that tore from her heart like thunder, Hanae unleashed her hidden power—crimson flames bursting from her hands. The courtyard lit with infernal glow, her aura a blazing mirror of the cursed witch she had been accused of.
But this time, she wielded it for her own truth.
"Enough running!" she screamed, charging forward.
The clash shook the mansion. Blades against blades, aura against fire, steel against steel. Giru danced between them all, laughing, crying, shouting as if every strike pulled his soul in two.
"Faster!" he yelled. "Harder! Don't hold back—don't end like him! Don't you dare end like—"
His voice broke. The smirk wavered.
And Rūpu saw it—the ghost behind his eyes. The same look he carried in his own reflection.
"You're just like us..." Rūpu whispered under his breath, blade pressing harder. "A broken kid... trying to pretend you're not alone."
Giru faltered, just for an instant. That was all it took. Hanae's flames roared around him, Isshun's fist slammed into his gut, and Rūpu's blade struck his dagger blade, snapping it in two.
The bandit fell to one knee, panting, his fox mask cracked down the middle.
Silence fell.
And then... Giru smirked again, weak and trembling. "...Not bad. Not bad at all. Maybe you're not glass after all."
Blood dripped from his lip. His horn gleamed under the sun.
"But don't waste this, damn you. Don't waste what I gave you."
He spun, leaping onto the roof with inhuman speed, vanishing into the city beyond. His laughter echoed, yet this time it shook—not with triumph, but with grief.
The trio stood together, panting, battered, their anger and sorrow momentarily forgotten. For the first time since their fracture, they weren't three broken pieces—they were one, held together by the strange, tragic push of a thief who carried his own unbearable past.
Isshun wiped blood from his mouth, staring after Giru. His heart ached.
"He forced us to fight together... not to hurt us, but to save us."
Rūpu clenched his fists. "Then I want to know why. I want to know what pain put that look in his eyes."
Hanae lowered her flames, tears streaming down her face. "Maybe... because no one ever saved him."
The morning wind swept the courtyard, carrying away the last echoes of the fox-masked childs laughter.
And though they had survived the test, the weight of his sorrow lingered heavy in their hearts.
Beneath the Fox Mask (Part 4)
The courtyard still smelled of scorched wood and steel. The golden city beyond glittered as if nothing had happened, as if nobles weren't whispering rumors of thieves and cursed children behind jeweled screens. But inside the three friends, silence lingered like a wound left open.
Hanae wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Rūpu leaned on his sword, its blade heavy with sorrow. Isshun stared at the broken tiles, his fists trembling—not in anger, but in the heaviness of what he had felt in Giru's eyes.
He had forced them together, yes. But why?
Why carry pain so deep it could bleed through even a smile that wide?
And so, when the mansion finally calmed, when guards scoured rooftops and nobles wailed over stolen gold, the three slipped away into the veins of the city, chasing only one kid.
They searched the streets first. Narrow alleys thick with the smell of oil lanterns, drunk adults stumbling over cobblestones. Rūpu's eyes scanned the rooftops, the chimneys. Hanae whispered his name like a prayer. Isshun kept silent, but his heart pulled toward a direction he couldn't name.
Hours passed. Night fell again, swallowing the gold of Yakaziku beneath its velvet shadows.
And then, they found him.
Giru Hazuma sat alone on the roof of a crumbling temple at the city's edge, his fox mask hanging loose in his hand. His now sharpened horn from his blade for some determination in the battle earlier glimmered faintly in the moonlight. His eyes—not smirking, not laughing—looked only upward, into a sky littered with pale stars.
He didn't move when they climbed up beside him. Didn't startle. Didn't even turn his head.
"You should've stayed in your mansion," Giru muttered, voice dry, empty of its usual swagger. "Princesses and cursed swords people have no business following gutter rats."
Rūpu sat anyway, resting his blades on his knees. "Maybe. But gutter rats don't cry into the sky unless they've lost something worth more than gold."
Hanae lowered herself next, her bow brushing against the roof tiles. Her hands fidgeted, but her voice was steady. "You're not alone, Giru. You don't have to keep smirking for people who don't care."
Isshun was last. He didn't sit immediately—he stood over them, fists tight, then finally sank down with a sigh, as though the act itself made his heart ache. "Tell us why. Tell us why you fight like you want us to hate you... but then look at us like you're begging for us to see you."
The bandit finally looked at them. His lips curved faintly, but it wasn't a smirk. It was sorrow trying to wear a mask and failing.
"You kids don't want my story," he said softly. "You think your pain is heavy? Mine is rusted chains. Mine is graves. Mine is... betrayal that doesn't fade, no matter how much I laugh."
His voice broke. For a moment, the fox mask trembled in his hand. He pressed it to his face, hiding behind it once more.
"Once, I had a friend. Like you three. We swore to live free, to spit in the faces of the rich who chained us. But promises break easy when they starve you, when they beat you, when they offer one of you food if the other takes the blame."
The three froze.
Rūpu's throat tightened. Hanae covered her mouth. Isshun's heart hollowed.
"He chose me," Giru whispered. "He chose to blame me. Said it was my fault. Said... said if I hadn't been born with this cursed horn, we both would've lived. So they chained me. And they... they—"
His words shattered. He couldn't finish.
The mask slipped from his hand, clattering onto the roof tiles. Beneath it, his face was streaked with tears, his sharpened horn catching moonlight like a jagged scar.
None of them spoke at first. None of them knew how to reach into that wound without bleeding too.
Then Rūpu placed a hand on his shoulder. Just one, steady, unshaking. "We're not him. We won't choose chains. Not for you. Not for us. We're here. Even if you don't want us, we'll sit here anyway."
Isshun's fists loosened. "You forced us together because you didn't want us to end like you and him, didn't you? You didn't want to watch it happen again."
Hanae's tears spilled freely, but her smile was soft. "You're not the villain of our story, Giru. You're part of it."
The kid looked at them. His lips trembled. For the first time, his smirk was gone—not replaced with anger or mockery, but with something raw. Something he hadn't allowed himself to feel in years.
Hope.
And as the four of them sat on that broken rooftop under the endless sky, the silence between them wasn't heavy anymore. It was shared.
The city still glittered with cruelty. The nobles still spat. The guards still hunted. But for that night, four broken children sat together, carrying scars too deep for their years, and chose—just for a moment—not to carry them alone.
TO BE CONTINUED...